The sun will still shine but the freezing weather stays
Two pedestrians are wrapped up against the cold weather while walking along the Bund in Shanghai yesterday.
The dry but freezing weather will linger in Shanghai until Friday, forecasters said.
This year’s sixth yellow frost alert, second of the three-colored system, was released at 4:51pm yesterday, warning of severe freezing and frosts in the city.
Today and tomorrow will, nevertheless, be sunny, though the low temperature will hover around minus 3 degrees Celsius downtown and minus 7 degrees in suburban areas, according to Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.
The city’s environmental monitoring center urged authorities to take precautions regarding roads, railways, electricity supply and telecommunications, and reminded farmers to take care of their crops.
The center also warned citizens to brace for light air pollution today, with the tiny hazardous to health PM2.5 particles being the main pollutants.
Low temperatures are forecast to climb slightly to minus 1 degree on both Wednesday and Thursday, with the high rising to 8 degrees. Wet weather will return late on Friday.
A new cold snap swept across the city late last Friday, blowing away smog but also freezing the city. Morning temperatures last Saturday dropped to minus 0.8 degrees in downtown Xujiahui area and minus 2.7 degrees in Chongming District. A yellow frost alert was released at 4pm.
The mercury further plummeted yesterday. Xujiahui recorded minus 2.1 degrees in the morning, and Chongming had some snow, with the morning temperature hitting minus 6 degrees.
At 9:09am, the frost alert was lifted, but Shanghai was placed on the alert again at 4:51pm.
The solar term of lichun, or spring begins, fell yesterday. Traditionally, lichun marks the start of snow melting and days getting warmer. But meteorologically, it requires five consecutive days with the average temperature above 10 degrees for spring to begin.
“It’s freezing cold outside,” said Wang Jiawei, a Shanghai citizen. “Although spring starts on Sunday, I do not feel spring coming.”
Usually, Shanghai enters spring in early March. Records from 1981 to 2017 showed the earliest spring was on February 9, 2016, and the latest was on April 5, 1996.
Nationwide, many parts of China will continue to experience a cold front.
Temperature drops hit most of south China due to strong north winds sweeping across the region, according to the National Meteorological Center.
The center said some areas in central and east China will see temperatures 2 to 5 degrees lower compared with the same period of last year.
Meanwhile, southwest China’s Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces have had snow or sleet, with heavy snowfall expected in some places today.
Forty-nine counties in Guizhou Province had seen snowfall as of Saturday while temperatures in 62 counties fell below zero degrees, the provincial meteorological station said.
