Don't pack away the thermals - winter is back
By Liang Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-03-03 01:37

Several days of rising Spring-like temperatures in northern China may be a false dawn as weather men predict a return to the big chill.

Instead of heralding the start of warmer days, early March will see a drastic temperature drop and a bone-cutting wind.

Citizens in Jinan, capital of East Shandong Provice, enjoy the winter snow in arboretum on February 16, 2004. [newsphoto]

Zhai Panmao, deputy director of the forecasting services and disaster mitigation of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said yester-day: "The mercury will keep going down within a week due to the frequencies of more down cold air in the North, Northeast China and areas between the Yellow and the Huaihe rivers."

He added: "More clean days can be expected in the days ahead with less warm and waterrich airflows with the expected cold days.

"This may extricate people living along the areas south of the Yangtze River from a prolonged overcast and rainy weather that has plagued residents in Guizhou and Guangxi for a record 21 days running while the winter fades out," he said.

Although rainfalls are forecasted for South China and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau over the next two days, they will not alleviate the catastrophic drought that has hit parts of Yunnan, Guangdong and Hainan provinces since last autumn.

So far this winter, precipitation has been 50 to 80 per cent less than a normal year in the three provinces making it difficult for millions of rural residents to find sufficient drinking water, according to the latest reports.

For the rest of this month, the mercury will stand at about 1C over that of the same period of a normal year in most of China with more rain to fall in parts of Northeast China, Inner Mongolia and areas along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

"Later this month, up to 20 per cent more rainfall is likely to fall in the south with temperatures dropping and affecting spring sowing of early rice along a vast stretch of paddy fields downstream the Yangtze," predicated Mao Liuliang, also an CMA official.

In the north, the onset of a spring drought may hit parts of Northeast and Northwest China from March to May as temperature to remain higher throughout the country.

This spring, a severe dry spell will affect parts of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and the upper reaches of the Yellow River and rainfall will be 20 per cent less than normal," Zhai warned.

"However, long-term climate predictions like this will not be as accurate as the daily forecasting we made due to the limitation of technology today," Shen Xiaonong, CMA's spokesman, admitted, indicating "the longer climate prediction, the less accuracy."

Reviewing weather changes so far this winter, they made it clear that China has experienced the 18th warmest winter since 1986, although people in many areas have had more freezing days, snow and rain during midwinter.

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