Strong gusts trigger yellow alert amid cold spell

As a severe cold wave sweeps across China, the National Meteorological Center has issued a series of warnings, highlighting that the impact of strong winds, overshadowing the effects of snow and rain, is more pronounced compared to the previous cold wave.

The center renewed a yellow warning, the third severest in the four-tier warning system, for strong winds on Friday morning, forecasting gusts of up to 32 meters per second in several regions, including parts of Northeast China, North China and the Yellow River-Huaihe River region such as provinces of Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong.

Powerful winds are also expected to hit some areas of the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea from 8 am Friday to 8 am Saturday.

In Beijing, the wind intensity reached notable extremes from Thursday to Friday, with the maximum wind speed detected at a mountain observatory in Yanqing district reaching 40.2 meters per second, according to the municipal meteorological station.

More than half of 311 monitoring stations in the capital recorded gusts with a speed of 19 meters per second or higher during the same period.

Zhang Linna, chief forecaster at the Beijing meteorological station, said that this level of wind is unusual for early February as historical data show that the strongest gust recorded at the Beijing station was 21.9 meters per second on Feb 8, 1994.

She noted that this cold air event involves a very strong cold air mass rapidly moving southward from Siberia and its center passing just over the North China region, crossing directly over Beijing.

The meteorological center also renewed a blue alert for a cold wave on Friday morning, indicating that from Friday to Saturday, a cold wave is expected to chill China, causing temperature drops in parts of the northwest and northern regions, the Yellow River-Huaihe River region, most parts of the southern region, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Western Sichuan Plateau.

In some regions, the temperature drop could exceed 10 C.

Zhu Dingzhen, a former chief expert at the China Meteorological Administration, said that the "wind chill effect" can be observed in some areas, where the perceived temperature is lower than the actual temperature due to rising wind.

This effect is particularly severe in the current cold wave, making the cold feel more intense, he said.

Unlike the previous cold wave that brought snow and rain, this one featured strong winds, with less precipitation expected, Zhu said.

Southern China might see light rain or sleet, while northern areas like the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Heilongjiang province could experience light to moderate snow, he added.

The strong winds could pose challenges for transportation, potentially leading to delays or temporary stops for trains, especially during the Spring Festival travel rush that saw an estimated 220 million trips on Thursday alone.

Authorities have advised the public to secure outdoor decorations and structures, ensure safety for high-altitude work, and take precautions against urban and forest fires.