A Study of the Large Scale Flooding over Eastern China in 1755

Following disastrous flooding in several river valleys over eastern China in 1755, serious flooding occurred in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in 1756 and 1757, a rarely seen precipitation pattern of north-flood and south-drought in China for two successive years. This is a serious meteorological disaster and extreme climatic event taking place under the climatic background of a warm phase of the Little Ice Age. In this paper, by means of historical literature records, the rainy and flooding situation and the weather characteristics of these years are reconstructed and the maps depicting areas of prolonged rain, flood and concomitant famine, insect pest, and pestilence are made. The results show that, in 1755, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, and the Huaihe River Basin experienced a prolonged rainy season with multiple torrential rain events. The continuous rainy period exceeded 40 days in the Huang-Huai Region. An early Meiyu occurred, and the duration of the Meiyu period in the lower Yangtze River Basin was 43 days, the longest in the 18th century. Particularly in Nanjing the annual rainfall of 1755 was 1,378 mm, the highest record of the 18th century. The year of 1755 is characterized by lower temperature in summer, early frost in autumn, and heavy snowfall and freezing rain in winter. These characteristics are extremely similar to those of 1823 and 1954, two typical years of extreme rainfall. And all these three years with extreme precipitation are corresponding to the minimum phase of the solar activity cycle.CitationZhang, D.-E., 2012: A study of the large scale flooding over eastern China in 1755. Adv. Clim. Change Res., 3(3), doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1248.2012.00128.