Cold wave sweeps across China
A strong cold wave from the south has swept the central and eastern parts of the country since Monday, prompting the National Meteorological Center to issue its highest cold wave warning alert for the first time in four years.
Some 20 weather stations across the country have reached or broken the lowest temperatures recorded for December since such record keeping began. Meanwhile, Beijing's Foyeding meteorological station recorded -26.4 degrees Celsius, and Shanghai Pudong recorded -6.2 degrees Celsius late Tuesday night — both lower than the temperatures compared with previous years.
In some parts of the country, temperatures plummeted by up to 18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday. Between Friday and Saturday, the temperatures in northeastern and southern China are expected to be 3 to 5 degrees Celsius lower than the average temperature from the previous years.
"This cold wave has impacted a wide range of areas in China, with high intensity, and a severe cooling effect," Fu Yi, chief service officer at the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau, told Sixth Tone.
He added that the intensity of this cold wave is stronger compared with the same period in previous years, while bearing similarities to a historic cold wave in 2016.
Monitoring data from China's meteorological stations show temperatures in 80% of the country's provinces have been close to, or lower than average this month.
Yuan Yuan, a researcher at the National Climate Center, told China Meteorological News that the colder temperature this winter is partly due to the La Nina climate phenomenon — the large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures — and nearly record low sea ice in the Arctic Sea, which impacts the monsoon winds.
In northern Inner Mongolia, over 100 households in a local herding community are said to be facing a water shortage, as supply pipes have frozen in a rare nighttime temperature of -40 degrees Celsius, according to media reports. Some cities in the eastern Zhejiang province have cut water supply for certain time periods to prevent pipes from freezing.
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R.C.