After a relatively warm Spring Festival, brace for a cold Valentine's Day.
Strong cold air from the north will hit the city today and bring the warm streak to a sharp end, Shanghai Meteorological Bureau forecast.
Temperatures today will be between 11 and 17 degrees Celsius with drizzle, and strong winds brought by the arrival of the cold air, the bureau said.
Tomorrow temperatures will drop to between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius, but it will turn cloudy later in the day.
The influence of the cold air will remain to stay on Monday and Tuesday with temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius but it will be dry weather.
Meanwhile, this year's Valentine Day could herald the earliest arrival of meteorological spring ever in Shanghai.
If the cold air doesn't quite accelerate its pace and the average temperature today turns out to be above 10 degrees Celsius, it will mean that Shanghai has been "in spring" since February 9.
The first day of a consecutive five days with average temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius is defined as the "Beginning of Spring". This year the "Beginning of Spring" fell on February 4.
According to its weather records for the past 143 years, the city usually welcomes the first day of spring around March 17, and the earliest arrival of spring was recorded in 1898, and the date was February 14. The Air Quality Index is forecast to be between 40 to 65 before the evening, falling in the range of "good" and "moderate".
The government announced that the city's good air quality during the Spring Festival wasn't even disturbed by the usually firecracker-resounded eve of the fifth day of the festival when people traditionally play some to "welcome the God of Wealth", due to the strict firework ban within the Outer Ring Road area which came into force since the beginning of this year.
