The major advances and development process of the theory of heavy rainfalls in China

China is situated in the East Asian monsoon region. As the East Asian summer monsoon sets in, prevails and northward advances, the major rainbelt accompanying the East Asian summer monsoon also stepwise moves northward, successively forming the presummer rainy period in South China, the Meiyu period in the Yangtze-Huaihe revier basins and the rainy season in North China. These three rainy periods and regions are also the occurrence periods and places of associated heavy rainfalls. Therefore, the heavy rainfalls in China are neither different from the tropical type of heavy rainfalls in the Indian monsoon region nor from the mid-latitude type of heavy rainfalls. The heavy rainfalls in China occur under the condition of strong interaction between the moist tropical monsoonal flow and cold mid- and high-latitude air, thus resulting in extremely high intensity long-persistence duration and very wide precipitation regions. Since early part of the 20th century. Chinese meteorologists began to investigate the occurrence conditions and mechanisms, and with a long-term effort, significand progress has been made in the theory of heavy rainfalls, and analysis and prediction of heavy rainfalls. The present paper will mainly address this aspect, including four problems:(1) the climatic characteristics of the heavy rainfalls in China, (2) the developmental process of the study of the theoretical aspects concerning the heavy rainfalls in China, (3) major achievements of occurrence mechanisms for heavy rainfalls in China and (4) the future chanllenge for the theory of heavy rainfall in China in terms of the convective scale.