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Snow, Ice Disrupt Trips Home for Millions of Chinese Ahead of Spring Festival 

This photo shows an aerial view of the railway marshalling yard of the Zhengzhou North Railway Station amid snowfall in Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan province, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
This photo shows an aerial view of the railway marshalling yard of the Zhengzhou North Railway Station amid snowfall in Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan province, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
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Snow, Ice Disrupt Trips Home for Millions of Chinese Ahead of Spring Festival 

This photo shows an aerial view of the railway marshalling yard of the Zhengzhou North Railway Station amid snowfall in Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan province, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)
This photo shows an aerial view of the railway marshalling yard of the Zhengzhou North Railway Station amid snowfall in Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan province, on February 4, 2024. (AFP)

Freezing rain, snow and ice have snarled traffic in central and eastern China as billions of people travel home ahead of the Spring Festival holiday in blistering cold weather that has swept through parts of the country over the past week.

Hunan and Hubei provinces have borne the brunt of the severe weather, which worsened over the weekend, slowing highway traffic to a crawl and cancelling hundreds of trains.

The travel disruptions coincide with the biggest mass travel migration in the world as millions flock home to see their families for the Chinese New Year.

Over the past few days, videos across Chinese social media showed images of people stranded on trains and or trapped in cars on snowy highways in several cities, including Jingzhou.

One driver was trapped in a car for three days, business outlet Yicai reported on Monday, and a passenger going to Wuhan was stuck on a train after it lost power supply amid freezing temperatures, social media videos showed.

Hundreds of trains have been delayed or suspended, and throngs of passengers were stranded at railway stations in Wuhan, local media said. Runways at the Tianhe Airport in Wuhan were temporarily closed Tuesday, state media CCTV reported.

Photos from China Meteorological Administration showed bent and broken trees scattered across roads in Hunan, felled by freezing rain. In 10 provinces, about 129 sections of highways were closed, according to Beijing News.

At least two people have died in snow-related accidents. One person in Hubei and another from the southern province of Hunan were killed as awnings in farmers markets collapsed under heavy snow, according to a state media reports.

The severe weather is expected for another few days, according to China National Emergency Broadcasting. Several cities upgraded weather advisories and emergency response plans.

Authorities in Hubei said they aimed to clear out tunnels and bridges, where thick ice has caused choke points.

The province has instructed hundreds of highway toll stations to take traffic control measures, including letting vehicles through for free.

China's Central Meteorological Observatory predicted more rain, snow and freezing weather in the south for the first half of this week, but said conditions would improve starting Thursday.

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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.