By LI Linxu

The Spring Festival is coming, while the opening ceremony of China's 14th National Winter Games is also about to lift the curtain.

The Games, which will officially kick off in Inner Mongolia autonomous region on February 17, will be the largest of its kind with the participation of more than 3,700 athletes.

To ensure smooth running of the Games, thousands of volunteers, workers and staff are ramping up preparation efforts for the Games, including weather forecasts.

People are skating in Hulun Buir city, Inner Mongolia autonomous region. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

Snow sports are quite dependent on meteorological conditions, said Shi Shaoying, deputy director of the Inner Mongolia Meteorological Observatory. If the temperature is too cold, it will not only affect the physical mechanism of athletes, but may lead to athletic injuries. Besides the temperature, the wind velocity, visibility and quality of snow also have an impact on athletes' performance.

To provide precise weather forecasts for the Games, the meteorological service team is leveraging the experience of the Beijing Winter Olympics in light of local conditions.

"Each site has its own temperament, so we have to get familiar with it as soon as possible," said Wang Ying, deputy director of the Hulun Buir Meteorological Observatory, and the person in charge of weather forecasts for the competition area of Zhalantun.

The area, located in the southeastern foothills of the Greater Khingan Mountains, will host events such as ski mountaineering, freestyle skiing and snowboarding.

Fifteen automatic meteorological monitoring stations, a laser anemometer radar, and a microwave radiometer have been set up at key points of the area to record real time changes of meteorological elements at minute scale.

Since last December, the team members have been walking along the venues daily to inspect the stations, note the wind variations, and observe the cloud changes.

For a qualification competition recently held in the area, they precisely predicted the starting and ending time of a snowfall, with only 0.1 millimetre variance in the magnitude of rainfall forecast.

As the Games are just around the corner, the team is ready to provide precise weather services for the participants.