The newspaper cited local meteorologists as saying that although last year the country's northwestern area witnessed normal to fairly ample rainfall and the Inner Mongolia even experienced several snowstorms, the possibility of sandstorms hitting Beijing still exists since the ground-surface humidity is not the sole deciding factor of the matter.

Based on information collected by two satellites monitoring the pulse of sandstorms, the meteorologists came to the conclusion that many other factors, such as the strength of cold air, ground- surface vegetation and atmospheric circumfluence are all related to the formation of sandstorms.

The satellite information indicates that northwestern China's Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Xinjiang and Qinghai regions are currently suffering from deteriorating ground- surface vegetation and increasing desertification, which, meteorologists believe, makes sandstorms inevitable for Beijing.

In 2001, Beijing was struck by 15 sandstorms which primarily originated from domestic deserts, yet the 13 sandstorms that hit a year later came mainly from Mongolia, which neighbors China in the north.

(eastday.com February 9, 2003)