In southern China, cold air is a common weather process during the winter season; it can cause strong wind, sharp temperature decreases, and even the snow or freezing rain events. However, the features of the atmospheric boundary layer during cold air passage are not clearly understood due to the lack of comprehensive observation data, especially regarding turbulence. In this study, four-layer gradient meteorological observation data and one-layer, 10-Hz ultrasonic anemometer-thermometer monitoring data from the northern side of Poyang Lake were employed to study the main features of the surface boundary layer during a strong cold-air passage over southern China. The results show that, with the passage of a cold air front, the wind speed exhibits low-frequency variations and that the wind systematically descends. During the strong wind period, the wind speed increases with height in the surface layer. Regular gust packets are superimposed on the basic strong wind flow. Before the passage of cold air, the wind gusts exhibit a coherent structure. The wind and turbulent momentum fluxes are small, although the gusty wind momentum flux is slightly larger than the turbulent momentum flux. However, during the invasion of cold air, both the gusty wind and turbulent momentum fluxes increase rapidly with wind speed, and the turbulent momentum flux is larger than the gusty wind momentum flux during the strong wind period. After the cold air invasion, this structure almost disappears.
