Weather won't take break for holidays

By Lan Tian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-30 08:33

Heading out of doors during the Labor Day holiday? Take your pick of dust or rain.

Light to moderate rain will fall on parts of northwest and southwest China, plus most of east-central China on Friday and Saturday, said Chen Zhenlin, a spokesman for the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

"Accompanied by southerly or northerly winds, the rain will bring down the temperature in North China and parts of Northeast China," said Chen.

Meanwhile, dusty weather will strike the mid-western Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the mid-western Gansu province and the northern Ningxia Hui autonomous region today, a report on CMA's website said yesterday.

However, it should be sunny with cloudy periods in most of the country on May 3.

He said North China has experienced seven sand and dust storms this year, far fewer than average.

This year's sixth and worst sand storm struck on April 23-25. It affected 20 million residents in a 730,000-sq-km area, polluted the air and disrupted transportation.

From April 17 to 20, severe rain hit Central and East China, leading to flooding and landslides and damaging farmland in Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Zhejiang provinces.