Abstract: Based on the onset date of the first rainy season in South China (ODFRS_SC) from "South China flood season monitoring operational specifications" and Meiyu (OD_Meiyu) over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River from "Meiyu monitoring operational specifications" released by China Meteorological Administration in 2014, rainy season processes over southern China are divided into four categories objectively from 1961 to 2021: Early type (early for ODFRS_SC and OD_Meiyu), late type (late for ODFRS_SC and OD_Meiyu), first-phase early and second-phase late type (early for ODFRS_SC and late for OD_Meiyu), and first-phase late and second-phase early type (late for ODFRS_SC and early for OD_Meiyu). In various types of rainy season processes, there are obvious differences in precipitation anomaly distribution in the spring and Meiyu periods over central and eastern China. Moreover, evolutions of east Asian atmospheric circulation anomaly and sea surface temperature (SST) in different rainy season processes have obvious differences. In the early type, from late March to early May, the East Asian subtropical jet (EASJ) was stronger, and the first northward jump was earlier. In June, the northward jump of the western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH) was obvious, and the anticyclone anomaly was located in the Philippines; the late type is the opposite of the early type in circulation terms. In the first-phase early and second-phase late type, the EASJ was stronger in the first stage and weaker in the second stage, the anticyclone (cyclone) anomaly in the first (second) stage was located at the Philippines, and the location of the WPSH was abnormally southward; the first-phase late and second-phase early type is the opposite of the former. The correlation between the rainy season process in southern China and the evolution of tropical SST is insignificant; especially, the relationships between the various progressions and evolutions of El Niño southern oscillation are complex.