According to media reports, on February 14, a spectacle in the Sihaihu National Wetland Park in Taonan City, located in the west of Jilin City, attracted a large number of netizens to watch: on the Sihai Lake, thousands of ice balls piled up under the ice layer on the surface of the lake, looking dense and quite special, known as "ice tangyuan", which coincided with the eve of the 15th Lantern Festival of the first month, and the appearance of such a peculiar "ice tangyuan" landscape added to the festive atmosphere.
The spectacle of the ice tangyuan of Sihai Lake in Taonan, Jilin Province
While marveling at the magic of natural landscapes, many netizens also have to ask: What is this strange "ice tangyuan" phenomenon, is it caused by weather changes? Could it be related to the cold wave? Is it a sign that a cold wave is heading south?
Some netizens also remember that in previous years, there were also media reports of similar strange ice balls - for example, in November 2019, on the beach of Luotto Island on the coast of Finland's Baltic Sea in Europe, a large number of egg-like ice balls appeared on the beach, and the scene once surprised many netizens.
"Ice eggs" that appeared on Finnish beaches in November 2019
Meteorologists then analyzed the reasons for the appearance of this strange ice egg, which may have been caused by the disintegration of parts of the melting sea ice by waves near the coast. Driven by just the right amount of waves or wind, these melting layers of ice are constantly spinning and sanding, and finally sanded to a surface smooth like an egg. Obviously, compared with the "ice eggs" that have appeared in the Netherlands, the "ice balls" in jilin on the mainland of China appear in the lakes and are also frozen under the ice, and there are still many differences between the "ice balls" and "ice eggs".
There is another inference that may be related to recent shifts in temperature patterns in the region. For example, data from the National Climate Center show that in the recent mid-to-late February (February 6-February 10), the temperature in many places in the northeast of the mainland was significantly higher, and the three northeastern provinces in the northeast were generally 2-4 degrees higher, and the local water was more than 4 degrees, resulting in the lake water of Sihai Lake not so cold.
But then, with the penetration of cold sources, the temperature in many places in the northeast began to gradually evolve towards a low level, but the temperature of the lake water did not drop so quickly, so part of the lake on the shore froze out a lot of Xiaoice nuclei, tumbled in the lake under the action of the wind, frozen layer by layer, and finally frozen into a soup ball, and finally after the water temperature dropped in place, all were frozen in the lake. Judging from the actual meteorological data in Taonan, there has indeed been a relatively sharp cooling, with the maximum temperature falling from around 0 degrees around February 9 to the recent -10 degrees, and the minimum temperature quickly sliding from -12 degrees up and down to -24 degrees.
Recent live data from Taonan, Jilin Province, from NMC
Of course, no matter what the cause of formation, this strange "ice ball" spectacle is related to the recent local cooling, low temperature weather, wind and other factors, which are the products of recent cold weather.
Sihaihu National Wetland Park photographed by Sentinel-2 L2A satellite on Feb. 10
Behind this is the recent violent oscillation of the atmospheric circulation in Eurasia, a series of changes in the cold reactor directly near the north of the continent, and the weekend snowfall in many places in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is also related to it, which does not mean that the cold wave is about to go south in the central and eastern parts of the continent. Of course, the return of the cold reactor center to Siberia does bring some risks of cold waves, but as to whether there will be a cold wave going south, it depends on the situation of high-pressure development in Central Siberia, and the uncertainty is greater.
Initial field analysis data for the supercomputer on February 13