The week's highest temperature may be 33 to 34 degrees Celsius, the fore-casters said. Yesterday's high was 32.1 degrees.

By the traditional calendar, fall started three-and-one-half weeks ago, but hot spells are common enough at this time of year for there to be a local name for them: "autumn tigers."

At the beginning of the week, Shanghai will be under a low-pressure system that promises showers and thun-derstorms in the afternoon and evening.

Today, more areas will be affected by rainstorms, which will probably be stronger than Saturday's, according to Chen Zhiqiang, the bureau's chief meteo-rologist.

Though Saturday's thunderstorm broke the grip of Friday's record 38.8 degrees - the highest regis-tered for mid August - it flooded some downtown streets, caused accidents and delayed aircraft.

The biggest downpour hit the No. 9 Bridge area of Minhang District, which had 71 millimeters of precipitation, Chen said.

In the half-hour ending at 9 p.m., Xuhui District had 37 millimeters' precipitation and Baoshan District 42 millimeters. Since the city's drainage capacity is only 27 to 36 millimeters per hour, about a dozen streets in those areas were flooded.

Shanghai officials said all problems were solved before 9:30 p.m. and no household flooding was reported.

According to Jiang Aishan of the Shanghai Fire Control Bureau, the bureau assigned more than 700 firefighters to deal with more than 60 fires and accidents reported between 6 p.m. on Saturday and 6 a.m. yesterday.

Most of the accidents involved motor-vehicle collisions, toppled billboards and fires sparked by snapped electrical wires. No major accidents or losses were reported, Jiang said.

By 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, 24 flights at Hongqiao Airport and 26 at Pudong International Airport had been canceled, delayed or transferred to airports in other cities. By yesterday, all operations were back to normal at the two local airfields.

Flights to or from airports in Hefei of Anhui Province, Nanjing of Jiangsu Province and Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province were also affected by the thunderstorm belt.

( eastday.com August 26, 2002)