Spiegel reports on tough winter conditions now battering large areas of Central and Eastern Europe, who were told just a few years ago, based on “advanced models”, that this would become “rare – a thing of the past”.
Cold, snow and wind batter Europe again.
So much for rare and a thing of the past. Europe has seen much snow and cold over all of the last 5 winters!
The online Spiegel.here reports on heavy winter weather taking a deadly toll across the continent.
Four people died in Croatia and one in Serbia because of the cold authorities reported on Sunday. Traffic came to a standstill at many locations, the airport in Zagreb was closed for hours. Also German President Joachim Gauck was delayed for hours flying back to Germany.”
Southeastern Europe was hit especially hard, with up to a half a meter of snow falling in the Balkan region. More lives were claimed in Poland, where Spiegel writes: “The winter outbreak has claimed 3 lives since Friday, temperatures in some regions fell below minus 15°C.”
Spiegel writes that German meteorologists at the German Weather Service (DWD) are expecting up to 20 centimeters of snow by Monday accompanied by dangerous blizzard conditions.
No change in weather is in sight: ‘Snow, ice and frost will accompany us through next week.'”
The English language The Local here reports on German weather conditions:
DWD issued snow storm warnings for several regions including parts of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Thuringia. The coldest temperatures of the winter so far at minus 22 degrees Celsius were recorded in Sohland in the Upper Lausitz area.”
Scandinavia was also har hit last week, where as many as 30 centimeters of snow fell during a “blizzard”, the English language Swedish The Local reported.
Wonderful idiot warmist arguments under the Spiegel article where they pontificate about how an increased CO2 GHE obviously leads to more extreme weather “as has been predicted” (No it actually hasn’t until after the fact; more protective hypothesis to protect the belly of the HMS Warmism). These people will cling on to their taxpayer subsidies to the very end.
If I were Mother Earth, I would give mankind for five years very mild and boring weather. In the fifth year climate scientists will predict that AGW produces less extremes. The theory predicts everything and therefore nothing.
Winter hits large parts of north western Poland hard
http://tvnmeteo.tvn24.pl/informacje/prognoza,45/fatalnie-na-drogach-tak-bedzie-do-poniedzialku,69708,1,0.html
The boulevard paper Bild.de from the same publishing house claim that the low Arctic ice is responsible for this and they use Scientific American as their source.
German text: http://www.bild.de/news/inland/winter/kriegen-wir-jetzt-jedes-jahr-russen-winter-27583040.bild.html
I remember cold and snow rich winters in the 60’s/70’s – also Russian winter called at that time. This means that by their logic the Arctic ice was at that time low, too. This is impossible according the AGW believers. My logic fails.
Considering, that at the end of the Winter season it is usually the coldest time then I fear that my friends and family in Germany will get more of the same.
The Bloomberg’s article from the 5th of December “Germany Faces Lack of Winter Power Generation, TransnetBW Says” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/germany-faces-lack-of-winter-power-generation-transnetbw-says.html
doesn’t make me happy, either.
Finger’s crossed that it will be not too bad this Winter.
“The boulevard paper Bild.de from the same publishing house”
Bild is owned by Springer (conservative), Spiegel is owned by “Spiegel Verlag” (left).
Thanks DirkH. It’s my memory. To long away from Germany.
I got mixed up. Axel Springer vs Rudolf Augstein
18 months ago Lawrence Solomon reminded us that tornadoes are more correlated with cooling than warming. Going by the slight increase in tornadoes, and all that white stuff in Europe, what we are seeing is likely a cooling. Five cold winters in row could be the beginning of a trend.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/01/lawrence-solomon-tornadoes-could-be-an-omen-of-global-cooling/
http://www.kiwithinker.com/2011/05/more-tornadoes-%E2%80%93-and-global-cooling/
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At least some good news:
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20121211-46685.html
When I read about the deep-freeze on Monday, the juxtaposition of an article just 3 weeks before brought some amusement.
http://www.fr-online.de/flughafen-frankfurt/winterdienst-auf-schnee-und-eis-vorbereitet,2641734,20895022.html
Frankfurt airport boasting that they were ready for the winter.
On Sunday, they had to cancel more than 350 flights and actually close for air traffic for a short period.
I guess that some people would have been “lucky” to have their flights cancelled after being stuck on the way to airport on either snow-bound roads or in “crawling” inter-city trains. http://www.nq-online.de/index.php?kat=10&artikel=110199333&red=1&ausgabe=61329
(I’m wondering how those heated railway line switches will cope with prolonged power outages. Still; they’ll be cosy homes for the wildlife, being constantly heated throughout the night.)
Those who got the airport, had the cloud of a possible snap strike by service and security personnel hanging over them. And, not related to the weather, don’t forget to bring a sandwich to eat while you wait for your baggage.
“I’m wondering how those heated railway line switches will cope with prolonged power outages.”
They freeze stiff. But during an outage that’s no problem as electric trains won’t run.
I suspect that they would take quite a while to defrost once power is restored. (They’re probably dimensioned to prevent freezing and not to defrost.) But the train is ready to go “immediately”, but still can’t reach its destination until the switches along the route are working.
When they work they defrost. If the operator in the interlocking issues the command to configure a certain route and the switches don’t move into position he’ll get an alarm; and the route is not cleared, signals stay red. You only ever get green signals once a route is completely configured.
So that’s not a safety hazard. But of course broken switch heatings lead to huge delays in winter or the need to re-route trains.