An unusually early fall of snow blanketed the Chinese capital, Beijing, from Sunday morning and kept falling for half the day, helped by temperatures as low as -2ºC and strong winds from the north.

The snowfall resulted from a deliberate “seeding” of clouds in an attempt to cause rainfall in the drought-hit north of China, Xinhua news agency reported.

Besides falling in the north-eastern provinces of Liaoning and Jilin and the northern province of Hebei, the eastern port city of Tianjin also got its first snow of the autumn, the report said.

“We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought," said Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office.

Chinese meteorologists have for years sought to make rain by injecting special chemicals into clouds.

Although the technique often gets results, the drought in the north of the country has continued for over a decade.