In a follow up to yesterday’s post, it turns out that snow in early November is indeed not common in Beijing. According to The China Daily in an article titled, “Weather Office Brings Selfish Snow,” “A spokesman from the Beijing Weather Modification Office said on Monday they had played a helping hand and ‘enhanced’ the natural snowfall to ease drought conditions in the city, after it had gone more than 100 days without rain… A total of 84 packages of silver iodide were fired into the clouds above Beijing between 8pm on Saturday and 7am on Sunday to prompt precipitation, causing 16 million cubic meters of snow to fall on the city.”
The weather was last tampered with just before National Day, when meteorologists were working to secure clear skies for China’s 60th anniversary celebration. Yesterday’s snow was the earliest in twenty two years. Over 200 flights in and out of the city were disrupted, and I am sure my mother, who sat in the Beijing Airport for 7 hours yesterday, would not be happy to know her inconvenience was state induced.