Weather
2010 Jan 11 World Wide Weird Weather as Snow Kills BJ Street Cleaners
It seems north China isn’t the only region experiencing extreme weather conditions. As Beijing deals with the aftermath of the heaviest snowfalls in more than half a century, parts of Europe and the US are also buried under unusually thick layers of snow, while Greece and Israel enjoy unseasonably warm conditions.
Read more...2009 Nov 10 Snowball Fight!
Snoooooowball Fight!
What a beautiful 3 am. Snow like this makes me glad it's winter; at least it does in the dead of night when it's all still fluffy and dry and beautiful, and the streets are empty and quiet - save for the gentle, almost imperceptible tinkle of snow falling on snow, and the low moaning of drunk clubbers traipsing through the streets like frozen zombies, searching for a cab.
2009 Nov 02 Xia Da Xue! Pics From First Snow of the Season
Unless you managed to sleep through all of Sunday (November 1), you would have woken yesterday to a thick layer of snow blanketing Beijing. When I stumbled out of bed around 6am to – ahem – take a pee, I was shocked to see the park outside my window lightly dusted in white.
2009 Aug 04 Dishrag Days
The gleeful gloating about how Beijing's improved air quality and climate from earlier this summer has been hit with a cold (or rather dingy) dose of reality.
Aside from an occasional glimpse of sunshine, the weather in our fair city has been mostly on the steamy side over the past few weeks - a relatively normal condition for this time of year, but a marked contrast from those wonderful blue skies all the same.
If you're looking for a break from all the muggy murkiness, the Beijing Youth Daily has some bad news: Weather conditions are expected to stay much the same throughout the week and may even worsen.
Read more...2009 Feb 16 Rain Makers
The rain that finally broke Beijing's 110-day dry spell fell harder and longer than it would have, thanks to the local government adopting cloud-seeding and other artificial precipitation measures. Given the favorable conditions (the meteorological bureau was predicting light rain) the local government decided to launch a land and air offensive on Feb 12 to try increase the amount of rain that would fall over Beijing. According to a report placed on the meteorological bureau's website, one plane from the Chinese air force was called into offer air support to 7 ground teams who blasted 49 rockets into the low lying clouds and another 31 teams who were busy burning 875 sticks of Silver iodide atop various mountains around suburban and rural Beijing.
2008 Dec 11 Pic of the Week: First Snow of the Season
Beijing got it's first sprinkling of snow yesterday morning, with early-risers being surprised by very light falls in the urban areas at about 7.30am. Falls were larger in the hills to the north and west of the city. The above photograph was taken at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.
Links and Sources
Sina: 组图：北京迎来入冬第一场雪
2008 Dec 03 Cold Snap!
The Beijing Bureau of Meteorology released an alert at 5pm yesterday - the first of its kind since 2004 - warning of a "cold wave" that will result in temperatures in the capital plummeting to -9 deg celsius overnight. According to the forecast, force 5 to 6 north winds will begin buffeting the city tonight and during the day tomorrow the temperature is unlikely to rise above 0 ℃. According to authorities, the cold front will only affect Beijing for the next couple of days and temperatures are likely to rebound over the weekend. That said, they're unlikely to reach the relatively mild temperatures we've been experiencing lately.
Links and Sources
Beijing Times: 本市首次发布寒潮预警 平原地区气温下降至-9℃
Hexun: 北京首发寒潮预警(图)
2008 Aug 01 The First Solar Eclipse of the Century (but not for Beijing!)
Folks in the western and central parts of China will be looking skywards this evening as the first solar eclipse of the century happens tonight at around 6:20pm local time. The rare astronomical event will be visible in some parts of the country, beginning in Xinjiang and ending in Henan, and the best views of a total eclipse should be from the city of Xi’an, in Sha’anxi province. Other cities, including Nanjing, should be able to view a partial eclipse, but unfortunately it looks as though Beijingers will miss out on the show because the eclipse is not expected to be visible from the capital.
Read more...2008 Jul 22 Splash! Where to cool off in Beijing
by Paul Pennay, Luan Jing Jing and Victoria Yang
Although it's not quite the hottest day that Beijing's seen this summer (it already reached 39.4 deg. earlier this month) still, temperatures today are likely to push past 35 degrees (95 to Americans). With this in mind, we've put together an up-dated list of outdoor swimming pools and water fun parks that Beijingers can splash around and cool off in. Given that we're now in the "Olympic Period" some of the cheap outdoor pools located in universities or close to Olympic venues are not open to the public. This means that the Workers' Stadium Pool, Chaoyang Park Pool and Tsinghua University Pool are all closed. Also, although they're having trouble enforcing the regulations, city authorities are encouraging people not to swim in any of lakes that dot Beijing's parks and tourist sites. Finally, bad news for those beach-starved residents who are dying to dive into some salty water, a plan to construct a saltwater pool in Beijing back in 2005 does not seem to have made it past the planning stages. Keep reading below for a list of the best places to cool off this summer: Read more...
2008 Mar 18 Pic of the Week: 10:05 from my window
Image courtesy of coeurdelion
The above image was taken this morning from Landmark Towers on the North East corner of the Third Ring Road. In another sign of how grim things are, the Firefox plug-in that flashes weather updates on our desktop currently reads blowing dust.
Links and Sources:
The Beijinger Forum: Smog...fog...haze...what is it?
Beijing Landmark Towers
