The heat rejection rate of natural draft dry cooling tower, as well as the operating performance of apower plant, can be affected by numerous ambient factors. The cold inflow is an unfavourableair turbulence at the top of the cooling tower and has a significantnegative effect on the performance of natural draft cooling towers. In the present research, results are given for a 20 m high natural draft dry cooling towerexperimental system tested at different ambient conditions. Several events of cold air incursioninto the top of the cooling tower are identified and the detailed experimental data arepresented. The experimental data show that this effect could seriously impair the thermal performance of the cooling tower. The water outlet temperature of the coolingtower hasincreased by as much asto 3°C in these tests because of the cold infloweffect. The mechanism and the solution arediscussed based on the experimental data. The findings in this paper can lay an important foundation for future small natural draft cooling towerdesign and operation.