Cold snap brings the coats back out

A cold snap is forecast to cause heavy snow in North China from Thursday to Friday, just as people have just put away their down jackets and readied themselves for spring, weather forecasters said.

Now, people have had to take their coats out again, as the country experienced a sharp drop in temperatures starting Wednesday. The drop in Taiyuan in Shanxi province, and in Zhengzhou in Henan province, has been as much as 20 C, with temperatures falling to around 5 C, the National Meteorological Center said.

The return of the cold is expected to bring heavy snow to northern regions and rainstorms to southern and eastern parts.

The center said that from Thursday to Friday, parts of Beijing, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Shanxi and Hebei provinces could see up to 12 centimeters of snow in place.

Rain and hail are forecast to continue in Sichuan and Guizhou provinces and in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, with temperatures dropping by as much as 12 C.

Weather China, a website run by the China Meteorological Administration, said that a second wave of cold air will affect southern areas. Temperatures along the Yangtze River will hit a low on Sunday or Monday, with average temperatures in most regions 1 to 2 C below normal.