Cold Snap and Blizzard
The series of severe winter events started on 10 January when a large dome of cold air enveloped most parts of China, causing much precipitation in the form of heavy snow west of the coastal areas, where the temperature was dropped to slightly below 0 °C (32 °F). The provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui and the municipality of Shanghai were hardest hit. Some received their worst snow storms in seventeen years while some experienced their worst in five decades. After the first wave of precipitation had passed through, snow continued to fall throughout several days following, accompanied by bitterly cold weather.
Snow was even reported in the country's largest true desert, the Taklamakan, where the snow and record low temperatures near −25 °C (−13 °F) lasted 11 consecutive days and killed livestock. At one point, the temperature dropped to −32 °C (−26 °F), breaking the January 2006 record of −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F), though the historical temperature series in this observatory is very short (started in 1996). The snow depth exceeded 4 centimetres (1.6 in) at times in the center of the desert according to the Tazhong Observatory. According to Xinhua, it was the first time that snow covered the entire desert at the same time.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Chinese Winter Storms
Famous quotes containing the words cold, snap and/or blizzard:
“Grandfather, you were the pillar of fire in front of the camp and now we are left in the camp alone, in the dark; and we are so cold and so sad.”
—Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof (b. 1978)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is getting dark and time he drew to a house,
But the blizzard blinds him to any house ahead.
The storm gets down his neck in any icy souse
That sucks his breath like a wicked cat in bed.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)