Gingko leaves hesitated to turn gold, while flowers blossoming in April bloomed once again in November. Shanghai is experiencing its warmest winter in a decade.

A woman wears summer shorts in a Shanghai street on Sunday, when the temperature in the city reaches 21 C. [China Daily]?

According to the Shanghai meteorological bureau, the city's highest temperature reached 23 C on Sunday and Monday and will remain about 20 C on Tuesday. But meteorologists declined to connect the abnormal weather with global warming.

Although this is the beginning of winter - one of the 24 Chinese solar terms fell on Nov 8 this year - this is the third time in November that the city has got warm again after a cold spell.

The average temperature in November has been 16.6 C so far, 2.7 C higher than the average temperature in November in the past 10 years in Shanghai.

Beijing has encountered a warm winter too.

According to data obtained by the forecasting center of the Beijing meteorological bureau, the average temperature in the capital this November has been about 2 C higher than that in the past 10 years.

However, a strong cold snap will bring temperature down in Central and East China in the coming week, and some regions will see snow and heavy rain, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said on Sunday.

Combining with a warm, moist air current, the cold snap will bring rain and snow to most of Central and East China from Monday to Saturday, the NMC said.

It will start raining in Shanghai on Tuesday and the weather will gradually get colder from Tuesday night onwards. The temperature on Friday will range from 8 to 12 C and the rainfall will then stop.

"The current sunny and warm weather is caused by high pressure," said Wu Rui, chief service officer of the Shanghai meteorological bureau.

"However, we can't say that a short period of warm weather has any direct connection with global warming."

Local residents grabbed the opportunity to enjoy the rare warm weather in late autumn.

The local meteorological bureau suggested that people should pay attention to everyday weather forecasts and put on warm clothes to avoid catching a cold.