By referring to the Meiyu indexes and taking Guixi,Dexing,Yushan Quzhou and Longquan as representative stations,ESRS(the early summer rainy season) indexes have been set.From 1961 to 2010,the general beginning and ending days were 10 June and 1 July respectively,about 8 days before the Meiyu period in the Yangtze-Huaihe River basin.The average duration of ESRS was 20.5 days and there were 15.5 rainy days in this period.The beginning days experienced a "V" pattern variation while the ending days presented a "spindle" oscillation process,and there were no obvious increase or decrease tendencies for the durations of ESRS and the number of rainy days in the last 50 years.Nevertheless,there were apparent variations in the annual durations of ESRS and the number of rainy days during 1980s,and ESRS was relatively weak during 1960s and after 2000.Besides the general circulations over West Pacific and Tibet Plateau,that over the Ural region was the most important factor affecting the starting time of ESRS.The general circulations over the Arctic Pole in the Eastern Hemisphere,West Pacific at low and middle latitudes,and Okhotsk Sea affect the intensity of ESRS obviously.