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The late spring rainfall may account for 15% of the annual total rainfall, which is crucial to early planting in southeastern China. A better understanding of the precipitation variations in the late spring and its predictability not only greatly increase our knowledge of related mechanisms, but it also benefits society and the economy. Four models participating in the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) were selected to study their abilities to forecast the late spring rainfall over southeastern China and the major sources of heavy rainfall from the perspective of the sea surface temperature (SST) field. We found that the models have better abilities to forecast the heavy rainfall over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River region (MLYZR) with only a 1-month lead time, but they failed for a 3-month lead time since the occurrence of the heavy rainfall was inconsistent with the observations. The observations indicate that the warm SST anomalies in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean are vital to the simultaneously heavy rainfall in the MLYZR in May, but an El Niño event is not a necessary condition for determining the heavy rainfall over the MLYZR. The heavy rainfall over the MLYZR in May is always accompanied by warming of the northeastern Indian Ocean and of the northeastern South China Sea (NSCS) from April to May in the models and observations, respectively. In the models, El Niño events may promote the warming processes over the northeastern Indian Ocean, which leads to heavy rainfall in the MLYZR. However, in the real world, El Niño events are not the main reason for the warming of the NSCS, and further research on the causes of this warming is still needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical swine fever (CSF), caused by classical swine fever virus (CSFV), is a severe disease that causes huge economic losses in the swine industry worldwide. In China, CSF has been under control due to extensive vaccination since 1954. However, there are still sporadic CSF outbreaks in China. Here, we isolated 27 CSFV strains from three Chinese provinces (Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia) from 2011 to 2018. Phylogenetic analysis based on the full-length envelope glycoprotein E2 coding region revealed that 25 out of 27 CSFV isolates clustered within subgroups 2.1 and 2.2, while two strains from Gansu belonged to subgroup 1.1. The sequence identity among these 27 isolates varied from 79.3% to 99.8% (nucleotides) and from 83.1% to 99.7% (amino acids). Further analysis based on the E2 amino acid sequences showed that these new isolates have consistent amino acid substitutions, including R31K and N34S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Wenchuan Ms8.O earthquake, the surface fractures have been investigated in Beichuan City and Yingxiu Town. It was found that the Beichuan-Yingxiu earthquake fracture zone trends northeastward, dipping to northwest. The earthquake fracture zone is mainly characterized by thrust faulting with small amounts of strike-slip movement, and demonstrating various complexities for different areas. The phenomena related to dextral strike-slip displacement are found in Beichuan City and those related to left-lateral strike-slip movement in Yingxiu Town. The compressive shortening of the two surface fracture zones in Beichuan City is 2.8-3.9 m and the left-lateral strike-slip displacement of the surface fractures in Yingxiu Town is 0.52 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]