With people sporting sleeveless shirts, parasols shading Beijing's bounty of beautiful ladies, and ice cream and pop selling faster than it has time to cool, summer seems to have arrived in the Chinese capital, with temperatures reaching 32 degrees Celsius.

Beijing's average temperature during past three weeks reached 18.8 degrees Celsius, 5.2 degrees higher than past years and the highest since 1951.

Meteorologists say, besides Beijing, most parts of north China have seen average temperatures four to six degrees higher than past years.

They say the unusually hot weather is caused by the acute shortage of rain, which means the heat could not be brought down by the evaporation of rainfall.

(CRI.com April 20, 2004)