Freezing weather hits North Korea

The depths of an arctic winter have hit North Korea, with temperatures falling to lower levels than last year.

Arctic air has been sitting over Mongolia for more than a week, but finally it slumped southeastwards, encouraged by a northwesterly wind from a developing storm system in the Sea of Japan.

A sudden drop in temperature hit the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, Jilin province, on Monday, lowering the prevailing -14C by nearly 6C. Jilin is a cold place in the winter and Changchun has an average daytime temperature of -10C. This, then, is cold even for Jilin.

January is the coldest month, on average, in North Korea, but even so, Pyongyang should expect a daytime temperature of -3C. This Tuesday the highest temp was -11C, after a night that dropped to -17C. This happened immediately after a mere 5cm of snow fell, and represents a drop in temperature of 15C in 24 hours.

In fact, on Tuesday the whole of North Korea recorded -11C at some point, a figure shrivelled by the following night when it dropped to -22C in the capital, colder still in the countryside.

Wednesday has proved a little less cold, with one or two North Korean cities actually creeping above freezing, in the sunshine. This is a temporary reprieve – this weekend looks very cold again.