What happened to the weather? The weatherman got it wrong.
Forecasters predicted warmer weather in Beijing this week,
instead there was cold snap.
Many people had shelved their warm clothes, after forecasts from
Beijing Meteorological Station predicted Tuesday's top temperature
would be 12 C. Instead, the mercury barely nudged 6.2 C.
?
?
Inaccurate forecasts had continued for three consecutive days
from Sunday. The forecast high for both Sunday and Monday was 9 C
but it was actually 5 C and 3.8 C respectively.
Zhang Jing, an office employee, complained that she caught a
cold because she put too much trust in the forecasts.
"I put away my woolly underclothes after hearing the weather
forecast on Tuesday and I went back home after work with a runny
nose," Zhang said.
Beijing has long experienced extreme variance in early spring,
and the weahter has often proved problematic to forecast, officials
with Beijing Meteorological Station said on Wednesday, responding
to the mounting complaints from local residents.
Temperature forecasts were often done on the basis of
statistics. Forecasters need to compile the data and make their own
judgment.
"Temperature forecasting is a complicated reasoning and thinking
procedure," Zhang Mingliang, a senior meteorologist with the
station, said.
"Any error in any part of the procedure can lead to inaccurate
forecast."
Overcast weather has dominated Beijing for about a week so far,
keeping the temperature down. Drifting of the clouds, which was
hard to predict, can also affect the temperature, meteorologists
said.
While many Beijingers may have felt the cold this early in
spring, experts said the daily average temperature was comparable
to previous years.
The cloudy weather is expected to last at least until this
weekend and people should try and keep warm.
(China Daily March 23, 2007)
