Heavy snow hits Beijing

Beijing is experiencing its first citywide snowfall of 2026 as a cold wave sweeps across north China.

The heavy snow began on Saturday morning and is expected to end on Sunday afternoon. As of 21:00 Saturday, it had hit most parts of the city, with an average precipitation of 0.6 millimeters and the highest snow accumulation reaching six millimeters in Fangshan District.

The municipal meteorological observatory has issued yellow alerts for icy roads and persistent low temperatures, while the weather authorities in the districts of Shijingshan, Mentougou, Changping, Fengtai, Fangshan, Haidian, and Yanqing have all issued blue alerts for heavy snow.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

The city has organized overnight operations to clear snow on roads, especially on highways.

"In response to this snowfall, we have deployed 31 equipment for snow removal operations, mainly sweeping rollers. If the snowfall strengthens and snow accumulates, we will use snow plows to ensure smooth traffic," said Wang Zemin, a manager of the Beijing Shoufa Highway Maintenance Engineering Company.

Meanwhile, the neighboring Tianjin Municipality also embraced its first snowfall of the year on Saturday, which has not significantly affected traffic in the urban area thanks to previously high road surface temperatures.

As the snowflakes fell, Tianjin presented a beautiful winter scenery, prompting many residents to take photos.

Heavy snow hits Beijing

Heavy snow hits Beijing

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship