Toilets froze over as a cold spell swept over northern China, marking the start of the coming winter.

Video shows a man trying to stomp on thick ice that had covered the squatting toilets inside a restroom in northern China on November 6.

Local media said temperatures in China’s northern provinces have dropped to freezing due to a cold front moving from the west towards the country’s eastern coast. Snow blanketed the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, and portions of Inner Mongolia over the weekend.

Large parts of northern China, including the capital Beijing, have this month been hit by freezing temperatures and the first snowfall of the year. It has sparked highway closures and flight and train cancellations.

China’s National Meteorological Agency raised an orange blizzard warning – the second-highest in China’s four-tiered alert system – as snowfall of up to 12 inches is forecasted in the following days.

State media Xinhua news said flights at the Hohhot City Airport were cancelled last Saturday due to inclement weather. Highways in Hebei and Shanxi provinces were also temporarily closed.

Forecasters said the winter weather struck around a month earlier than usual. Temperatures on Sunday fell to some of their lowest for the period in the past decade.