Changbai Mountain, Jilin Province, China——On the morning of July 1, an unusual snowfall appeared in this amazing primitive forest, Changbai Mountain, lasting for the whole day with a short pause at noon. The snow depth at Tianchi Lake on the main peak reached 5 centimeters, which was really uncommon during the hottest season in this region.
According to the report from China Meteorological Popular Science Network, “ At 8:12 am on July,1, big snow flakes fell down in the area of Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain. The snowfall is still continuing at the meteorological station of the main peak with an elevation of 2623 meters. The temperature was minus 0.3 celcius.”
The snowfall only occurred on the main peak and at the tundra with an elevation of more than 2300 meters. It started as a sleet at eight in the morning and continued until four in the afternoon with an interval at noon, resulting in an accumulated snow of 5 centimeters. The amount of precipitation reached 16.5 millimeters by 8 am on July 2.
Tourism in Changbai Mountain was affected by the rare weather phenomenon. First visitors had been allowed to go up the mountain at around half past seven before the snow arrived. Ticketing stopped as soon as the snow starts and the order recovered at around half past eleven.
It is known that the snowfall appeared primarily because of the cold vortex from the northeastern part of China. Cold vortex will lead to showers, thundershowers, strong wind, hail or other unstable weather, which can cause the harm to vegetation and crops and disturb people’s life. People in Jilin Province put on sweaters as if cool autumn comes instead of T-shirts in summer and the messages they published online were even cast doubts by people from other regions at first.
At the same time, we do need to consider the influence on the Changbai Mountain ecosystem. The extreme weather pattern, which was definitely not belong to the normal cycle of the seasons, will disrupt the growing pace of the vegetation or even cause deaths of many species. As one of the best-preserved primitive forest in the world with magnificent view of nature, this is a really serious problem because the damage to the environment is irreversible, which can be a pity for the whole world. So now we do need to think about this: how this unreliable climate comes? Too much pollution? Over using of sources? We human beings should have a better idea of the relationship between nature and ourselves.
Y. Zhang
