It's winter! It's been here since Friday

THE city has been in winter since Friday, weathermen announced yesterday.

It's the earliest start of the cold season in 28 years.

The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said the early winter was caused by the cold fronts that began affecting the city at the end of last month.

"The Eurasian high-latitude circulation went longitudinally to a large extent, which enabled the strong cold fronts go directly from the polar region to our country," said Li Jinyu, chief service officer of the bureau.

Li said the 35-day-long autumn was the shortest in the city's 136-year meteorological record.

He blamed the extreme weather on global warming.

"With the global warming, the climate change starts to become extreme and irregular," Li said.

"The weather this year was abnormal to some extent."

Li pointed out that the city has been through a lot of extreme weather recently, such as record high this summer at 42 degrees Celsius and the continuous storms after.

Meanwhile, the city had a short spring this year of only 41 days, starting March 26 and ending May 5.

Heavy snow continued its impact yesterday on the city's inter-provincial transportation. Thirty-two coaches of 29 lines were canceled, many heading to Anhui Province, which had heavy snow.

Trains and air flights service have returned to normal, authorities said yesterday.

Today's weather forecast: Overcast to cloudy with the temperature down to 8 degrees Celsius high and 2 degrees low as another cold front hits the city, the bureau said. Frost is expected in some parts of the city today.

Drizzles should come tomorrow with the temperature at 9 high and 5 low.

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