A moderate rain and snow began to hit most parts of
drought-plagued north China on Saturday as farmers and authorities
have been struggling against the drought that has affected millions
of hectares of croplands and caused drinking water shortages.
Chinese capital Beijing experienced rain and snow of 21 to 32
millimeters Saturday and Sunday, with a maximum of 41 millimeters
in Haidian District, according to the Beijing Meteorological
Observatory.
"The rainfall on Saturday surpassed the total rainfall in this
city in the past three months," said Guo Hu, director of the
observatory.
The snow in Beijing which began on Saturday night, would not
cause much trouble to traffic because of a comparatively high
ground temperature, the observatory said.
The rainfall also hit most parts of other provinces in north
China such as northwestern Ningxia and eastern Shandong, where people had been struggling to
fight against a severe drought since last winter.
Farmers in the southwest of Shandong welcomed a moderate rain
which lasted a whole day on Saturday, which was also the first
significant rainfall for crops since last winter.
Rain and snow began to hit northwest China's Ningxia region on
Friday evening, with the maximum of 13 millimeters reported in
Yinchuan, the regional capital.
The rainy and snowy weather was conducive to alleviating the
drought in the central part of the region, said meteorologists of
the region.
About 40,000 passengers and 10,000 drivers were stranded in
Erdos city in Inner Mongolia, which saw a blizzard on
Saturday with a maximum snowfall of up to 20 centimeters.
Most parts of the city experienced a 24-hour snowfall which
began on Friday evening, with an average of 16 centimeters, the
city's meteorologists said.
The city, a major coal production base in the region, had to
shut down many sections of highways due to the snow. It has only
two trains out each day and mainly relies on highway transport.
The Baita Airport in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, had to
be shut down between 6 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday due to the
heavy snow.
The central meteorological observatory forecast that rainfall
would continue to hit most parts of north China in the next two
days.
(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2007)
