Wednesday, February 10, 2010

November 01, 2009 17:03 PM

Inner Mongolia's Cold Snap Brings First Snow To Beijing

By Vincent Low

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Bernama) -- A cold snap from inner Mongolia has brought the first snow to Beijing early dawn Sunday, two months ahead of winter.

Dizzy rain which began from Saturday night turned to mild snow as cold winds brought down the temperature from 16.4 degrees Celcius to 0.4 degree Celcius Sunday morning, covering most part of the city white.

Snow soon began to pile up before noon, where workers began to clear snow blocking the roads to facilitate the movement of residents.

However, as today is a non-working day, city traffic was not badly affected.

According to Beijing Meteorological Department senior engingeer Zhang Mingying, cold snap of level 6-7 landed northern China yesterday, causing a 10 to 16 degree sharp drop of temperature in Beijing and Hebei, Jilin and Liaoning provinces.

"It is unusual for cold snap of this level to occur in October...this is the first time that Beijing is swept by cold snap in October since the 1970s," he added.

According to weather statistics of Beijing city from 1971-2000, there was no previous report of cold snap sweeping across Beijing in October.

-- BERNAMA

We provide (subscription-based) 
news coverage in our Newswire service.