Winter cold to bite northern Vietnam starting Tuesday

Northern Vietnam plains including Hanoi will see temperatures drop to 12 degrees Celsius at night as a cold front swings into the region starting Tuesday night, weather experts say.

The region will remain sunny and dry Monday and Tuesday, but starting Tuesday night, the cold front would bring rains, with rainfall of up to 100 mm within 24 hours in the mountainous regions, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

U.S. weather forecast service AccuWeather said Hanoi temperatures would be around 21-32 degrees Celsius Monday and Tuesday, before dropping to 13-23 degrees Celsius Wednesday, 12-17 degrees Celsius Friday, and rising gradually to 17-21 degrees towards Sunday.

High-altitude locations like Lao Cai's Sa Pa Town would see temperatures drop gradually towards the end of the week, reaching 8-12 degrees Celsius by Friday.

Nguyen Van Huong, head of the national center's weather forecasting department, said the cold front would continue to get stronger after December 30, extending the cold weather in northern Vietnam.

The center said central Vietnam would see sunny days until November 30, with temperatures between 29-32 degrees Celsius. The cold air arrive in the region the same day and trigger rainfall later.

In the first days of December, localities from Thanh Hoa to Thua Thien-Hue would see their highest temperatures during the day at lower than 20 degrees Celsius.

Southern Vietnam and the Central Highlands would see little rain until the end of this month. Starting next month, rains would return to both regions.

Average temperatures from December to February next year should be roughly the same as previous years, meteorologists said. Temperatures in January, however, would be around 0.5 degrees higher than the average temperatures in previous years. The cold period, when temperatures drop below 15 degrees, should also be happen around these months, with each period lasting around 2-5 days, the weathermen said.