China is facing extreme weather as the scorching heat breaks records in some drought-stricken parts of the country, while cool weather sweeps through other regions as the climate crisis makes conditions more unstable.
In the south, dozens of drought alerts have been issued for cities and counties in Jiangxi province, warning that crops could suffer from the worst drought conditions in 50 years.
Qingyang city in Gansu province reached 40.9 degrees Celsius 105 Fahrenheit on Monday, breaking the national heat record for October, at a time when temperatures typically average 20 degrees Celsius 68 Fahrenheit, according to weather service Ogimet.
The southern provinces of Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong also set new record heat in October.
It is truly abnormal, nobody has had this kind of record-breaking temperatures in October, said Fang Keyan, a climate scientist at Fujian Normal University.
Fang said seasonal weather transitions are becoming more complicated to estimate because atmospheric circulations were disrupted due to rising global temperatures as a result of the climate crisis.
While parts of the country are swelter, some regions may see early snowfall this year.
The National Meteorological Center NMC issued its first national cold wave warning on Sunday, with cold air sweeping the north and central regions of the country. It was lifted by the China Meteorological Observatory three days later.
The cold air has cooled parts of northern China, with national weather agencies warning that temperatures could hover around 12 degrees Celsius 53 Fahrenheit in central parts of the country.
In the coming days, moderate snow and snow are projected to fall across northern areas of Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang according to the NMC s forecast.
Fang said dramatic changes in temperature nationwide were particularly harmful for farming, as crops can't withstand the prolonged hot and dry summer, while a sudden cold spell slows the growth of plants.
He said that this reduces the production of crops and will be bad for the environment because forests in the subtropical region usually have peak growth in the summer and autumn.
China has been through a summer of extreme weather this year, with hundreds of thousands affected by the heaviest rainfall in 60 years, followed by a devastating heat wave that dried rivers and killed thousands of livestock.
From April to June, severe flooding and landslides occurred in the south of the country, which was followed by a heat wave that spread across central and southern China from mid-June to late August.
The extreme heat caused the power crunch, prompting authorities to dim office lighting, shut factories and cut power from homes, forcing air conditioners to be turned off.
The persistent heat wave that stretched into October was caused by a subtropical high, according to the NMC, with temperatures in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River already shattering records.
Before the cold air reaches southern China, more places in the region will continue to swelter through extended heat, with the highest temperatures likely to keep rising and possibly breaking more records, said a NMC meteorologist, Zhang Tao, told a media briefing on Saturday.