China extends alert against cold wave, heavy snow

BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's capital city Beijing was hit by the second snowfall in the three-day New Year holiday on Sunday morning, which was much heavier than the first one on Saturday.

The overnight snow, which started at 8:00 p.m. Saturday night, is continuing. The city's meteorological bureau upgraded the snowstorm alert from blue to yellow at 8:50 a.m. Sunday.

"The yellow alert means that the snowfall is going to turn heavier to above 6 millimeters in the next 12 hours," said Guo Hu, the bureau chief.

He said that the northern part of Beijing received the heaviest snowfall, or 8.4 millimeters by Sunday morning. The average snowfall in the city proper reached 4.8 millimeters, compared with less than 1 millimeter on Saturday.

China's Central Meteorological Station said on its website that snowstorms would affect northern areas including Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as well as Hebei and Shandong provinces on Sunday.