Weather bureau says this winter coldest in 10 years

The winter in Beijing was labeled by the local weather bureau yesterday as the first real winter to hit the city in five years.

Zhang Qing, a senior engineer with the climate center of the bureau, told METRO any winter with an average temperature below -3.2 C is regarded as a "cold winter."

He went on to say that the average ground temperature in Beijing, between December 2009 and February 2010, was recorded as -3.5 C, making it the coldest in a decade.