Rainy days will last until the end of New Year holiday, or Wednesday, and the mercury will keep between 7 to 10 degrees Celsius in Shanghai.

Residents should watch out when going outside because of the low visibility brought by fog in the next two days.

The rains have affected Shanghai residents' mood for trips as the city's tourist transport center hosted less than 3,000 people on Monday, dropping 50 percent from a year earlier.

Yao Weirong, director of the tourist center, said many tourists are not willing to travel in rainy and foggy days in concerns of traffic condition.

"The peak hour is delayed to 9am now, which was usually around 7am to 8am," Yao said. "It's partly because tourists are waiting to see whether sunny day would come."

About 130,000 passengers rode trains in the city on Monday, growing from a year earlier, and many of them took short trips to Wuxi, Hangzhou and Ningbo.

A total of 30,000 people took long-haul buses to out-of-town areas Monday, and Nantong, Suzhou and Hangzhou are popular among them.

By Winny Wang