HEAVY SNOW FOR EUROPE
From Scotland to Spain, Sweden to Turkey, further bouts of heavy snows and freezing lows are on the cards for Europe.
Flakes are forecast to return to the UK Sunday evening (Jan 29), compounding the country’s ongoing energy woes–with the National Grid continuing to pay Brits to turn off their electricity during peak times to help with demand. Latest models see snow falling at a rate of 3cm-per-hour in Scotland, with potentially disruptive accumulations building across the higher elevations.
Record-challenging totals are forecast for the likes of Norway, with feet expected across the Alps and Pyrenees.
Balkan nations won’t miss out as the calendar flips to February.
Rare flurries could again clip the Costa Del Sol.
And similarly in Turkey, alarmists’ cries of “global warming = mild winter” will soon predictably morph into brainless yelps of “global warming = record-setting snow”: The eco-warriors were offered a cake but now want to eat it, too. But I recall the days when global warming meant ‘linearly-rising temperatures and decreasing snowfall’ — this was the theory doggedly promoted for the past few decades: “Snowfall will become a thing of the past”, and the rest…
GFS Total Snowfall (cm) Jan 27 – Feb 12 [tropicaltidbits.com].
Looking ahead, a full-blown ‘polar vortex’ is still forecast to impact Europe next month. Time will tell on that one, but the likes of Asia has been suffering its own record-setting outbreak for months now, with North America due a similar fate, starting this weekend.
HISTORIC TOTALS ACROSS WESTERN U.S.
It has been a winter for the record books in the western United States. And looking ahead, the models are in agreement that another Arctic Outbreak is about to hit, this time engulfing the majority of the North American continent.
GFS 2m Temperature Anomalies (C) Jan 28 – Feb 2 [tropicaltidbits.com].
GFS Total Snowfall (cm) Jan 27 – Feb 12 [tropicaltidbits.com].
Putting aside what’s to come, unprecedented snowfall has already clipped Western mountains this year.
The Central Sierra Snow Lab officially recorded 175 inches of snow across the Northern Sierra Nevada mountains as of Jan 19 — that’s 249% of the average for the entire month of January.
At Mammoth Lakes, a staggering 400+ inches of snow has fallen this year which is a new all-time record and led to resort officials commenting, “Most places would view what we just experienced in Mammoth Lakes as a natural disaster.”
Areas of Lake Tahoe have received 100 inches more than they did all of last year. Tahoe has met, and will certainly break, historic snowfall records this year.
While in Northern California, Mt. Shasta has received 180 inches of snowfall thus far; typically, the average snowfall for the entire season is 136 inches.
FLORIDA CHILLS
While the Northeast is still waiting on its first proper January snow (it got more than enough over the Holidays as ‘one of the worst winter storms in U.S. history’ delivered 8-feet to the likes of Buffalo, killing at least 100 people), down south, however, Florida’s Manatees are struggling with unusually-frigid conditions.
State officials reported this week that at least 56 manatees have died this month, compared to 39 during the same period in 2022 — which turned out to be the second-deadliest year on record.
According to wildlife experts, the majority of this year’s deaths can be attributed to the state’s recent severe cold spell,
NUNAVUT SCHOOL LOWERS ‘COLD WEATHER CUTOFF’ TO -60C (-76F)
The District Education Authority (DEA) in Sanirajak, Nunavut, has loosened its cold weather policy.
The Arnaqjuaq school’s former weather policy called for closure when the windchill reached between –50C and –55C (-58F and -67F). But recently, it was agreed to bump that down to –60C (-76F) so that kids miss fewer days.
January day in Sanirajak, Nunavut.
A windchill below –60C is pretty rare, even in Sanirajak, a community of fewer than 900 people on the shore of Foxe Basin in the central Arctic. But it does happen. In fact, it could happen today… Environment and Climate Change Canada issued an extreme cold warning for the community Thursday: –42C (-43.6F) is expected, with an early-morning windchill nearing –60C.
Nothing says ‘catastrophic global warming’ like lowering the cut-off for cold-weather days.
“UNPRECEDENTED” 170-STRONG HERD OF BISON SPOTTED IN POLAND
A large, 170-strong herd of bison has been spotted on the outskirts of Białowieża Forest in eastern Poland — the largest ever seen, according to local scientists.
As reported by notesfrompoland.com –and as pointed out to me by reader ‘MK’– the group was observed at the end of December by researchers who monitor bison and study their reproduction.
The researchers released the below image of the herd:
“We were surprised to see such a large number of bison in one place,” said Rafał Kowalczyk, who leads bison research at IBS PAN. “We monitor bison herds in several places in Poland and abroad, and so far the [previous] largest herd, with 136 individuals, was observed by us this winter on the outskirts of the Knyszyn forest [in Poland],” he added.
“When we saw a massive herd on the outskirts of the Białowieża Forest, we wondered if it would match the Knyszyn one.”
It did.
And more.
The record-breaking, 170-sized herd, which includes 40 calves, formed during the sudden onset of winter back in December. Heavy snowfall and a stark plunge in temperatures saw smaller herds group together to increase their chances of survival.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the population of European bison has more than tripled in the last 20-or-so years, from around 1,800 in 2003 to over 6,200 in 2019.
Nothing quite says ‘catastrophic global warming’ and ‘ecological collapse’ like a tripling of a continent’s bison population.
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