Temperatures are set to drop significantly throughout China with a cold front sweeping in over the weekend, marking the arrival of overdue winter, meteorologists say.

This change in weather will also bring rain, sleet and snow to many parts of the country with heavy snowfall possible in eastern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in North China and parts of Northeast China, they predicted.

Northerly winds of force 4 to 6 are expected in the coming days with gusts of up to force 7 in regions north of the Huaihe River, causing temperature drops from 4 C to 8 C in most of China with drops as low as 10 C in some areas.

Wang Bangzhong, deputy director of the forecasting service and disaster mitigation department under the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) warned on Friday, that "around this Sunday, the mercury is likely to drop by as much as 12 C in regions stretching from Northwest China to areas north of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River upon the heels of the cold current.

"Although the plummeting temperatures will further cool down the first month of the season for those living in North China, winter days have still not arrived elsewhere," a forecaster noted.

Yang Guiming, a senior forecaster with the National Meteorological Centre, made it clear that, so far this month, the winter season has not arrived on time in parts of North China including Beijing, Tianjin municipalities and southern Hebei Province.

"The winter season usually emerges in North China with average daily temperature drops below 10 C for five consecutive days," he said.

This year, the arrival of winter has lagged behind 4 to 8 days in most of Northeast China's provinces and parts of Inner Mongolia in line with normal standards set for the beginning of winter, he said.

This year's winter has even been delayed for up to 16 days in parts of Northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, said Ren Fuming, deputy director of the climate diagnostics and prediction division under Beijing Climate Centre.

"However, it is too early for us to predict another warm winter this year at the moment," he said. "In fact, this winter has been delayed by many complex factors including prolonged sub-tropic high pressure fronts, which have been known to have a strong impact upon climate change in certain areas of the world," he explained.

(China Daily November 5, 2005)