Typhoon Saudel's Remnants Break Wenzhou's Daily Rain Record, 120,000 Evacuated
Cangnan in Wenzhou recorded 382.5 millimeters of rain in a single day — the heaviest in its observation history — as the remnants of Typhoon Saudel stalled over Zhejiang, prompting school closures, a Grade-II flood emergency and the evacuation of more than 120,000 people.
Schools that reopened across China this week sent pupils home again in Wenzhou on Tuesday. The coastal city in Zhejiang province declared a day off for nurseries, primary and middle schools in several districts as the remnants of Typhoon Saudel stalled over the region, and Cangnan county logged 382.5 millimeters of rain in a single day — the heaviest daily rainfall in the station's observation history.
Saudel made landfall in Zhejiang last week, its third strike on the same stretch of coast in two months, and its trailing rain bands have proved more damaging than the landfall itself. Chinese meteorologists described the setup with a phrase borrowed from martial arts, "striking the ox from across the mountain" (隔山打牛式): the storm's inverted trough funneled moist air into the foothills far from the typhoon's center, squeezing out record rain over places the eye never touched. Saudel's residual circulation then looped back for a second pass — state media called it a "returning horse lance" (回马枪) — pushing more extreme rain into neighboring Fujian, where streets in Fuding flooded for a second day.
On Weibo, the hashtag for the Cangnan waterlogging carried live video of brown water submerging cars to their roofs and residents poling inflatable boats down what had been streets. Local officials upgraded the rain alert to red — the highest level — at 7:20 p.m. on Monday, and more than 120,000 people have been moved to safety across Wenzhou, according to the city's own tally. In Zaoxi township, at the center of the downpour, party workers went door to door overnight; by 11 a.m. on Tuesday the town reported 847 residents persuaded to leave and 147 rescued from inundated homes.
The disaster has also produced a parallel conversation about misinformation. A claim that heavy rain had killed someone at a Ruian highway exit spread quickly on Baidu's trending board before local authorities debunked it, confirming there were no casualties. It is a familiar dynamic after last month's Nepal border mudslide, where police named and shamed ten rumor-mongers while rescue work was still under way.
The immediate forecast offers little relief: China's weather service expects strong rain to keep falling across eastern and southern provinces for another three days, and Wenzhou has kept bus routes through mountainous townships suspended and hazard-prone roads closed. Saudel, meanwhile, has become the season's case study in how a typhoon's most expensive weather can arrive days after landfall, hundreds of kilometers from where it came ashore.