Shanghai in China records chilliest December in four decades

Friday, December 22, 2023

China‘s financial hub Shanghai records its chilliest period in December in four decades. It is spurring authorities to issue warnings for low temperatures and wind.

The northern cities battled icy conditions forecast to ease only next week.

The city’s lowest temperatures on Thursday will be -4˚C to -6˚C in Shanghai’s suburbs, and temperatures will remain below zero all day throughout the city.

The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said this in a post on its social media account.

While the city’s temperatures remain far warmer than those in northern China, the run of cold weather was unusual for Shanghai.

Many provinces in the northern China have recorded historically low temperatures in recent weeks,

The city’s weather bureau said it expects the minimum temperature at one downtown reading station to remain below zero for five straight days until Dec. 25.

It is a run of cold in the month of December that hasn’t occurred in 40 years.

The unusually frigid weather ushered in by a powerful wave of cold air from Siberia has spread across China since the middle of last week. Many northern provinces rewriting December records as the mercury sank as low as -30 degree Celsius in some cities.

While the snowfall was modest compared to deep snowdrifts and blizzards seen in North America and Europe, the bitter cold, ice and gusty conditions in China have disrupted road, rail and air transportation.

It has sharply increased demand for heating, and even hampered rescue efforts in the northwest where an earthquake destroyed over 200,000 homes.

In Lvliang, a city of 3 million people in the province of Shanxi, firefighters had to put out a fire in a building even as their protective helmets and jackets quickly became encased in ice in -18 degrees C conditions, state media reported on Thursday.

The cold snap has also threatened to freeze China’s busy online food delivery sector.

On social media, some people have expressed their reluctance to order takeout in the extreme cold due to worries for the safety of delivery drivers.

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