Winter may have arrived slightly later than normal, but it has
been making its presence felt. This week a fresh cold front is
sweeping down from Siberia into China, bringing with it plummeting
temperatures and heavy fog.
The cold front entered northwest China yesterday, and is
continuing on a south-easterly path, promising snow and a
temperature drop of?eight to 10 degrees, according to the
Central Meteorological Office (CMO).
North China has already experienced heavy fog because of the
front.
At Beijing Capital International Airport, at least 17 flights
were cancelled and 60 delayed, airport authorities said.
"Fortunately the number of delayed flights is not likely to
increase as we are starting to work through the backlog," an
official told China Daily.
Twenty-one trains to Beijing on the Beijing-Guangzhou railway
were also delayed on Sunday and yesterday, as visibility on the
line dropped to just?three meters in places, according to
Beijing Railway Bureau.
All administrative staff at Beijing West Railway Station had to
cancel their holidays and return to work to cope with the
problem.
Road traffic in Beijing did not suffer too much during the New
Year holidays thanks to a lower traffic volume, but several
expressways linking Beijing and neighboring provinces were closed
temporarily because of the fog.
Local meteorological stations in several provinces, including
Hebei, Henan and Shandong, issued fog warnings yesterday.
The CMO predicted the heavy fog will vanish today as the cold
temperatures arrive.
The CMO earlier predicted that this winter will be the coldest
China has experienced in 20 years, as average temperatures in
December were the lowest recorded since 1986.
(China Daily January 4, 2006)