SEOUL, South Korea – Winter in Seoul is usually cold, but none this cold.
Last week, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was one of many areas in Asia where temperatures were near or above record lows. Fingers and toes were frozen numb. People cooked hot pots and braved the elements – sometimes in places with escalating outbreaks of the new coronavirus – using humor as a coping mechanism.
On Friday, temperatures in Seoul dipped below 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius), only slightly above the record low set in 1986, and people joked on social media that it felt like waking up in Siberia.
In Beijing, temperatures reached minus 19 degrees Celsius on Thursday. Official news outlets reported that it was the lowest temperature since 1966. On the Twitter-like platform Weibo, people said it gave them an idea of what it’s like to live in the Arctic. Subscribe
Even China’s official weather forecasting website made a joke, posting a map that turned the country of 1.4 billion people into a refrigerator.
“Which floor of the refrigerator are you on?” a headline that went viral online asked.
Japan is also unusually cold, as is Mongolia. In late December of last year, Mongolia’s barometric pressure readings appeared to be the highest on record on the planet.
Even in subtropical Hong Kong, the local weather station issued a rare frost warning last Friday. Daily lows remained above 4 degrees Celsius, but some pedestrians in a city that hardly needs indoor heating still wrapped themselves up as if they were on their way to a ski lodge.
Here are a few images documenting a cold week in Asia.
In the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang on Friday, hot water was poured into the air at about -27 degrees Celsius, which immediately condensed into ice crystals.
In Beijing, some brave swimmers braved strong winds and bitter cold to jump into a lake.
Some wrapped up for a ride around town, while others said they would stay home.
“The cold has left me with no desire to go out,” said Sisi Yang (ph), a Beijing resident who works in the film industry, “and a little worried that someone might freeze to death.”
In South Korea, an unexpected snowstorm on Wednesday exacerbated the cold snap, causing severe traffic jams in Seoul’s Gangnam district. The incident prompted an apology from the city’s acting mayor, Seo Jeong-hyun, and complaints from stranded drivers, one of whom likened the hours-long traffic jam to a “disaster movie.
On Friday, a Seoul YTN TV host waved a bowl of instant noodles that had frozen after sitting outside for about an hour to show how cold it was.
The Korea Meteorological Administration later warned that temperatures were likely to remain frigid over the weekend – -15 degrees Celsius in Seoul and -22 degrees Celsius in Chuncheon, which borders North Korea.
On Friday, heavy snow swept through Jeju Island, and the only thing moving on the roads was a herd of deer.
In Seoul, children ski down a hill in a city park.
In Japan, it’s been so cold lately that national broadcaster NHK aired a segment last month about how animals in zoos stay warm.
At a zoo in Aichi Prefecture, monkeys gather around a bonfire, and in the western city of Okayama, a giant rodent from South America “enjoys a hot bath soaked in fragrant yuzu,” a tradition “usually enjoyed by humans,” according to NHK.
In addition, there was heavy snowfall. On Friday, parts of central Japan saw record snowfall, with nearly 19 inches in the coastal city of Toyama. A bus driver there helped shovel snow off a street so that people driving by could pass.
This weather also brings winter beauty.
People in Japan’s southern prefecture of Fukuoka visited a giant statue of a reclining Buddha with snowflakes falling on it in an elegant scene Friday as weather officials warned that an impending winter storm could lead to avalanches and power outages.
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