On the morning of the 17th, the lowest temperatures at 30 national weather stations including Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin exceeded the historical extreme in December. The lowest temperature in Tianjin urban area was only -12.2℃, and the lowest temperature in the city was in Beichen District, as low as -21.1℃.
Severe cold fronts have extended their grip over the majority of China, sending temperatures plunging below freezing and breaking historic extreme low records in multiple places, prompting authorities to deploy preventive arrangements to deal with possible extreme situations.
While experts reminded the public to take preventive measures to protect themselves as well as livestock as some places recorded temperatures below -40 C, they also assured the public there was no need to panic since China has strong capability to cope with extreme weather emergencies.
The past weekend was the coldest in the latter part of the year for a vast area of the country, with 23 provincial capital cities seeing record low temperatures since November, according to weather.com.cn.
The temperature difference between the highs and lows recorded at meteorological stations across China reached 76 C on Saturday, with the highest temperature of 31.8 C recorded in Baoting in South China's Hainan Province and the lowest of -44.2 C recorded in Tulihe township of Yakeshi city in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
A total of 30 national-level meteorological stations in multiple provinces and cities such as Hebei, Shanxi, Beijing, Tianjin and Liaoning, recorded historic extreme low temperatures for December on Sunday morning, with five stations in Shanxi, Hebei and Liaoning seeing new records since their establishment.
On Sunday, China's capital Beijing also suffered the coldest day of the winter season at -15.5 C. It was the third lowest temperature for the period since 1951, when China started collecting complete and continuous meteorological observation data.
