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Why are winters especially dry in Shanxi?

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Fogong Temple: timber pagoda — Shanxi Timber pagoda of the Fogong Temple, 1056, Song dynasty; at Yingxian, Shanxi province, China.

Winters in the Chinese province of Shanxi are notably dry because the region is exposed to the full force of dry, northwesterly winds that blow throughout the winter season from the Mongolian Plateau.

This climatic pattern is a defining feature of the province's semiarid environment, where the vast majority of annual precipitation—roughly 70 to 80 percent—is concentrated in the summer months between June and September.1