SHANGHAI, Aug. 3 -- A RECORD company yesterday said it used artificial snow in a music video shoot that was mistaken for real snow in media reports on Monday.

Residents were confused after media reports said it snowed for five minutes around the Third Ring Road on Monday evening even though the temperature reached 29 degrees Celsius that day. The reports also said the snowflakes were the size of coins.

A record company told Beijing News yesterday that they were shooting a music video on the top of a 20-story mansion near Changhong Bridge near the Third Ring Road at that time. They used artificial snow in the video shoot, the report said.

A record company employee, surnamed Qi, said the artificial snow began falling about 6pm, but they stopped shooting 10 minutes later when it began to rain.

A man surnamed Zhu first reported the snowfall when he looked out the window of a newspaper's office.

"Many of my colleagues saw the snow," he said. Zhu said he did not know there was a team shooting a music video.

Beijing's meteorological bureau, as well as China's state weather bureau said after the initial report that it can't snow in such hot weather. Neither of the bureaus detected any snowfall that day.