A heavy snow began to fall on the most parts of central, eastern and northern China on Tuesday, the Winter Solstice Day of the Chinese traditional calendar boasting the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.
A man walks past a line of pottery models of 2000-year-old Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an on December 21, 2004.
Forecast issued by the Chinese Central Meteorological Station (CCMS) Tuesday said that influenced by both the cold and warm air currents, central, eastern and northern China will see an obvious precipitation in the next five days.
From Tuesday to Thursday, southwestern China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, northwestern China, north China, the Hanjiang River Valley in central China, the Yellow and Huaihe river valleys and the Yangtze and Huaihe river valleys will see light snow, moderate snow or sleet.
Heavy snow will fall in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, north China's Shanxi and Hebei provinces, east China's Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces and central China's Henan and Hubei provinces, said the forecast.
From Tuesday to Saturday, the eastern part of southwest China, southern part of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and most parts of south China will see drizzle or moderate rain or sleet, while some parts of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River will have heavy rain.
Coming precipitation may bring some troubles to traffic in north China and the Yellow and Huaihe river valleys, but it will help relieve the drought in these regions, said Yang Keming, senior engineer with the CCMS.
However, compared with other regions, precipitation in south China which has been haunted by serious drought since this Autumn is still not much enough, said Yang.
Mainly influenced by warm and wet air currents, the precipitation may not bring sharp drop of temperatures of these regions, said Yang.
