People walk near the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing's Chaoyang district during a sandstorm on March 28, 2021. (KUANG LINHUA / CHINA DAILY)
A sand and dust storm from Mongolia swept through northern areas of China on Sunday and led to the temporary closure of some highways.
Satellite images detected the storm at 3 pm on Saturday moving southeast from Mongolia into China, covering an area of 398,000 square kilometers, the China Meteorological Administration said.
By Sunday, the storm had affected 17 provincial-level regions, stretching from Qinghai in the west to Heilongjiang in the north, and as far south as Anhui, the National Meteorological Center said
By Sunday, the storm had affected 17 provincial-level regions, stretching from Qinghai in the west to Heilongjiang in the north, and as far south as Anhui, the National Meteorological Center said.
Visibility remained lower than 500 meters in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and the local meteorological service issued an orange alert, the second-highest level in a three-tier weather alert system on Saturday.
In Beijing, visibility dropped below 1,000 meters with strong winds on Sunday morning, the capital's meteorological service said. At 4 pm on Sunday, the level of PM10 particles in Beijing dropped to 199 micrograms per cubic meter in six major urban districts, down from 2,673 micrograms per cu m at around 8 am, the Beijing Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Center said.
ALSO READ: Air quality worsens as sandstorm hits Beijing, northern provinces
Several highway sections in Tianjin and Hebei province were temporarily closed for safety reasons on Sunday morning.
The center forecast that the sandstorm will continue until Monday, with winds tapering off. On Monday afternoon, a southerly wind will blow some dust and sand back to Beijing and surrounding areas, the capital's meteorological service said.
Zhang Tao, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center, said the Mongolian storm was weaker than the one that swept through China between March 14 and 18, which the center said was the strongest in nearly a decade.
In both cases, "strong winds brought by a cyclone blew sand up in the air from Mongolia into China," he said, adding that the current storm traveled a bit more easterly than the previous one.
Rao Xiaoqin, a senior engineer who also works at the national center, said the Mongolian cyclones were generated by the combination of warm and cold air currents in the mountainous region.
"Cyclones in the region usually occur in spring and autumn," she said. "Normally, they enter China through the north or the northeast."
RED MORE: Biggest sandstorm in decade sweeps northern China
The center warned people, especially those who have respiratory diseases, to protect themselves and avoid outdoor activities. In windy areas, people should be careful around scaffolds and billboards.
According to the China Meteorological Administration's Tianqi.com website, five rounds of sandy and dusty weather have occurred in China this year, more than usual, because average temperatures in Mongolia and Northwest China have been higher and precipitation lower.
From 1981 to 2010, the capital had an annual average of 2.4 days of dust and sandstorms in March.
The longest sandstorm this century lasted nine days in 2001, the capital's observatory said.
