The Weather in China

Everyone is always asking me what the weather’s really like here in China, and especially in Beijing. As around the world China is known for its smoggy weather and people want to know how bad it is!

As China is such a big place there are said to be 5 different temperature zones:

1. The Cold-Temperate Zone

Province(s): The north part of Heilongjiang Province and Inner Mongolia (the top top part of China)

Cities: Harbin City for example

2. Mid-Temperate Zone

Province(s): The rest of Heilongjiang, Liaoning Province, Northern Xinjiang

Cities: Beijing, Shenyang, Dalian, Urumqi, Lanzhou etc.

3. Warm-Temperate Zone – the middle section of China

Province(s): Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi

Cities: Xi’an, Taiyuan, Qingdao, Zhengzhou etc.

4. Subtropical Zone

Cities: Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Guilin, Suzhou, Chengdu, Kunming etc.

5. Tropical Zone

Province(s): Hainan, South Taiwan, Guangdong

Cities: Sanya, Haikou etc.

(Note that the general temperature gets warmer as you go down the list)

As I lived in Beijing for over a year, I noticed some really cool but also strange things about the weather here, that may or may not settle any unanswered questions you may have about the weather here:

· When it rains, it really rains, and I mean a lot. It’s full of thunderstorms lightning etc. But I noticed that the majority of the full on rain happens majority of the time at night, and by the morning the ground is pretty much dry, strange.

· When it’s cold, it’s really cold. I had to buy a coat for the first time ever in my life from living in Beijing during the cold winter days, the wind, the air, the snow, terrifyingly cold! And I made the stupid mistake of going to the great wall on one of these days…

· When it’s hot, it’s hot all day, even in the evenings.

· The hottest temperature I faced in Beijing was 35C, just imagine that with no air con inside

· There isn’t a gradual change from summer to autumn to winter, it just sort of happens with a quickly changing shortening of the day light.

· The main rainy season is seen in July and August

· The warmest month is August

· The coldest month is January

· It can be humid often, which gets a lot worse the further south you go

· It might be raining when you get on the subway and two stops later it’s completely dry and blue skies, that’s how big Beijing is!

· Most of the snow starts in December to February

· People carry umbrellas even if it’s raining or if it’s slightly sunny. So if you’re tall, watch out for your face.

· The smog doesn’t really disrupt you at all, if you’re conscious of breathing the particles in, simply wear a mask, maybe 70% of people will wear a mask when the smog is very full on i.e. more than 200 AQI. But it’s likely to be clear again when a warm or cold weather front comes to the area, and even if the smog is only slightly there, maybe only 10% of people you see will actually wear a mask, it’s majorly women with kids (understandable), the very health conscious, and also foreigners. It’s probably better for you to wear a mask in anything more than 175AQI as this is the range of which it’s not good for people with asthma etc. But quite often you don’t even notice it, quite a lot of times however, when it was hot, and the skies were blue and clear, you could still taste the smog in the air, nice! But even when the smog is bad, it only ever happens a few times.

· When the weather’s nice, it’s the best weather you could ever hope for, it’s a good temperature the skies are blue and clear, it makes perfect sightseeing and travelling weather, and to be honest, it’s like this most of the time, but there are just a few occasions of which the skies are full of dense smog, or thunderstorms. But you soon get used to the smog, it’s a bit daunting at first, but you’ll hardly ever notice it as it’s not there every day.

For more information about China, please visit us via www.studyinchina.hzlearning.com or www.hzlearning.com

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