Abstract: China suffered from severe climate in January 2008 when low temperature, glaze and heavy snowfall significantly struck the transportation, communication and electricity transmission in the south of the country. It stimulates great interest in studying the severe winters. Climatic data show that negative temperature anomaly of this winter probably was moderate, near or less than the threshold of cold (-1.5℃) and much less than that of severe (-2.5℃) winters. However, this has been the coldest one since 1977. The frequencies of type-1a (Rainbelt lies in the eastern China) and type-4 (Rainbelt lies in the north of China) rain patterns in summer, following a severe winter, were greater than their normals, as indicated by the chronology of the last millennium. EOF analysis suggests that the changes in temperature in January of 2008 appeared as a part of interannual variability, which means that probability of occurrence of similar winter pattern in the near future is low.

Key words: temperature, cold winter, climate feature