Heavy snow hit Beijing today, stranding thousands of passengers at the Chinese capital's main airport and casting an unusual quiet over normally busy streets as people stayed out of the freezing weather.
More than 90 per cent of flights at Beijing's Capital International Airport, the country's busiest, were cancelled or severely delayed, state television said, with only one of its three runways open at one point.
Airports in the nearby cities of Tianjin, Hohhot and Dalian closed completely for a time.
Many of the highways out of Beijing were shut too, with several centimetres (inches) of snow blanketing roads and temperatures expected to touch lows of -16 Celsius (3.20F).
The last time northern China was hit by a spell of snow storms in November food prices spiked due to delivery woes, driving up inflation unexpectedly that month.
The latest snowstorm and the likelihood roads may stay backlogged for several days more could fuel fresh worries about weather-caused inflation.
Long lines formed at the airport terminal in Beijing as passengers waited to rearrange their flights or get taxis or buses out. On the tarmac, workers in orange jackets shovelled snow and ice from around grounded aircraft which themselves were blanketed in snow.
The snow is expected to stop falling in Beijing on Monday, but temperatures are likely to drop further, with lows of around -20 Celsius (-4.00F), forecasters said.
Beijing, which over the past few years has seen little winter snow, has experienced several falls so far this season, including at least one man-made snowstorm to help ease a prolonged drought.
The bad weather is also affecting large swathes of the rest of northern and northeastern China, with snow and plunging temperatures expected to continue into the first full week of the new year, according to weather forecasts.
The southwestern provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and the metropolis of Chongqing are likely to experience heavy fog, forecasters added.
Reuters