Now's the time for a winter that's official

Wednesday is likely to be the fifth consecutive day of average temperatures below 10 degrees, which would indicate that winter officially arrived on December 12, the city’s weather bureau said on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, temperatures will reach 8 degrees Celsius, with a low of 1 degree, the bureau said. Temperatures should remain below freezing in suburban districts.

They will gradually increase to 10 degrees on Sunday, with lows of around 4 degrees.

Tuesday’s air quality was excellent and is expected to be excellent or good over the following three days, the city’s ecology and environment bureau said.

The weather bureau said the city had the first fall of snow between midnight last Sunday and early Monday morning, although it turned to sleet.

Some residents said that because it couldn’t be seen on the ground that it didn’t count.

Neighboring cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, including Nanjing and Hangzhou, have had falls of “visible” snow recently.

The bureau said that snow is rare in Shanghai, a coastal city, because the temperature on the ground is higher than that in inland regions.