Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai will enjoy sunshine today, but the rain and snow will be back tomorrow, weather experts said.

Yesterday's temporary respite from the icy weather meant an improvement in travel conditions and passengers and cargo delayed by the heavy snow were at last able to leave the city by air and by road.

The good news is that the weather for the arrival of the Spring Festival holiday will be sunny with occasional clouds, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

In downtown areas, temperatures will drop to minus two degrees Celsius and to minus three to four degrees in the suburbs. Maximum temperatures will be around five degrees.

On Friday night and into Saturday morning, Shanghai experienced the worst snowstorms that have hit the city for 60 years.

Most areas had a fall in excess of 10 centimeters.

Chongming County had 21 centimeters, while the Xujiahui area in Xuhui District had five, the bureau said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Han Zheng expressed criticism of the Shanghai Urban Transport Bureau and ordered it to monitor the city's transport situation more closely.

The mayor gave the order after the office failed to give him adequate information when he called it on Saturday.

The East China Civil Aviation Administration said the city's airports were operating normally yesterday after almost 500 flights were cancelled or delayed on Saturday.

As the provincial highways in the region gradually opened up to traffic from yesterday morning, city coach shuttles were back to normal.

The city transport administration said about 3,700 coach shuttles would have left town with 110,000 travelers in total yesterday.

The administration sent 38 buses to the city's two airports to help transfer stranded passengers on Saturday evening. They also added dozens of buses to help transfer passengers delayed at the railway stations.

The Zhabei Stadium is now a temporary home for travelers from Shanghai Railway Station while two schools near Shanghai South Railway Station were also being used.

The Shanghai Railway Administration said that trains to Guangzhou, Kunming and Zhanjiang cities were still not operating by 3pm yesterday.

There were still delays to trains heading south and west but the number of trains affected was falling.

Despite the delays, some 165,000 travelers managed to leave the city by rail on Saturday.

In total, 795,000 people traveled by rail in the region including Shanghai, neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and part of Anhui Province on Saturday, officials said.

At Shanghai South Railway Station, 19-year-old Zhou Zhiyang said he and his younger brother had been waiting to leave the city for five days. "Today we've got the tickets at last,'' he said.

A worker who only identified himself as Wu, whose home town is in Guizhou Province, said that he and his wife had stayed in the station for two nights, making a bed for themselves in a passageway.