Since January 7, local time, Pakistan, located west of China, has been hit by heavy snowfall, especially in the Pamir Plateau and the mountainous areas of the western himalayas. In the Murree area on the eastern outskirts of Islamabad, pakistan's capital, a large number of passengers stranded on mountain roads suddenly encountered a prolonged snowstorm, and many were unfortunately killed.
According to survivors of the disaster, a fierce snowstorm hit the area beginning on January 7, with snow rolling over trees blocking access roads to the town. Many people were soon trapped on roads blocked by the wind and snow. Social media images and videos showed cars trapped by a snowstorm one after another, with snow piled on their roofs, turning into snow peaks. Heavy snow closed roads to the mountains, leaving about 1,000 cars stranded on the road and killing at least 22 people. Data from the nearby town of Nathiagali shows that the fierce snowstorm made the snow thicker than 1 meter, which is the main reason for the large number of vehicles stranded.
On the afternoon of January 10, after the snow had weakened in Pakistan and other places, the Fengyun-4 high-definition visible-light satellite cloud map also captured the white snow that painted the mountains and plateaus white.
The ferocious snowstorm encountered by Pakistan is related to the recent abnormal atmospheric circulation situation in the region - recently, the westerly wind belt west of China has oscillated violently, and the energy of the violent oscillation has not only led to heavy rain and heavy snow in Afghanistan and other places, but also gradually spread eastward, forming a low vortex system in the south branch near Pakistan.
This sustained low-vortex system pulled a large amount of water vapor north in the Indian Ocean, and eventually the influx of water vapor turned into a large number of blizzards on the windward slopes of the mountainous plateaus in northern Pakistan, leading to the tragedy.
Although by Jan. 10, the low vortex had begun to shallowen, supercomputer projections suggest that the fluctuations it generated within the south branch of the westerly winds would continue to spread eastward in the form of the south branch, south of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In this way, the Indian Ocean water vapor it guides has begun to have a trend of further entering Our country - the latest forecast of the supercomputer believes that with the formation of the south branch trough, the water vapor transportation in the southern part of China will become more abundant, and eventually a large range of rain and snow weather will be stimulated around January 13.
The forecast of the Central Meteorological Observatory also pointed out a wide range of rain and snow weather in southern China around January 13, and there is also the possibility of snow in many parts of the Yangtze River Basin. On the whole, after the heavy snowstorm in Pakistan, the number of places to snow in the south of our country will indeed increase significantly, and many places may be the first snow since 2022.