Approaching the meteorological forecast service team of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics


Ji xueshuai (left) put up a bracket with his teammates and measured the snow temperature with an infrared thermometer. Our reporter Guo Jingyuan photo

On the morning of January 26, Liu Huayue, a forecaster who was training in the meteorological bureau of Chongli district, Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, received an urgent notice that Zhang Yu, his teammate, was injured by observation instruments during field observation in Chongli Snow Farm, I had to go to the hospital for examination and treatment, and the next observation task needed him to top up. “In fact, Zhang Yu was injured two days ago, but he had been enduring it and insisted on working with the injury.” Liu Huayue said.

In the past two years, there were not only athletes but also forecasters in Chongli winter training. The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing and Zhangjiakou. This winter Olympics will also be the one with the largest number of items, with 109 items in total. Among them, ice projects account for about 30% and skiing events accounts for about 70%. Zhangjiakou Chongli Division undertakes most of the outdoor skiing events.

“Meteorological conditions are a key factor for the success of the Winter Olympics.” Wang Zongmin, deputy director of Hebei Meteorological Observatory, said, especially the snow sports held outdoors, are greatly restricted by meteorological conditions. Wind speed, wind speed, temperature, snow temperature, etc. may affect the arrangement of events, athlete performance and personal safety. Not only that, it is different from the marine climate of the host of the previous Winter Olympics, which is also the first time to hold the Winter Olympics in a continental monsoon climate city. Guo Hong, deputy director of Zhangjiakou Meteorological Observatory, said frankly that the difficulty of meteorological service and security was only increased compared with previous years.

At the beginning of 2018, the first batch of meteorological forecast service teams in Hebei competition area entered Chongli to carry out practical training, and now the team has expanded to 36 people. They are all young and middle-aged meteorological forecast technical backbones from the National Meteorological Center and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and other places.

From January 6 to March 18, the winter training in 2019 in Hebei competition area was carried out intensively. The team is divided into reddish yellow white 3 teams every 12 days and conducts transition training in three stations of Hebei Meteorological Observatory (Shijiazhuang), Zhangjiakou Meteorological Bureau and Chongli meteorological bureau every 12 days.

“Mountains are connected to mountains, continuous. The number of ditches is infinite.” This is a gift among the local population. In addition to extremely a varied topography conditions, the surrounding areas of Chongli are all semi-arid areas, while Chongli belongs to semi-humid areas. Its unique geographical location causes the local special “microclimate”, low temperature, bad weather such as strong wind is performed here every day……

In the Genting Snow Field in Chongli district, Ji xueshuai, a member of the red team wearing cold protective clothing, snow goggles and windproof mask, is measuring the snow temperature with an infrared thermometer and recording the data later. Then, he and his teammates also used hand-held meteorological measuring instruments to measure wind speed, temperature, relative humidity and other projects. “Different positions of each track need to be measured in order to be familiar with the meteorological environment of the track and accumulate data and experience to continuously improve weather forecast products. Every time I go up the mountain for four or five hours, I walk nearly 20,000 steps.” Ji Xue Shuai said.

“Chongli’s mountain road is very special. Stones are attached to the soft soil, and there are bushes and weeds growing in the room. Sometimes when walking down the mountain road, the shoes are rotten. The measuring instrument was frozen in a few seconds, but we must hold on.” The high-intensity work made Liu Huayue feel more pressure. Near the Spring Festival, he was at home in Shijiazhuang and had no mind to consider going home for the new year.

Now, this weather forecast service team has officially started to provide weather forecast for 29 competition stations; Facing the demand of meteorological service to guarantee scientific and technological research, Hebei Meteorological Bureau has built a case library of high-impact weather in the competition area, the research and construction of the forecast index system of the competition area is being carried out. All these have given us more confidence and confidence to welcome the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Guo Jingyuan