Science
Related: About this forumEurope Hammered by Winter, Is North America Next?
Feb 16, 2012: For the first half of this year's winter, the big news was warm temperatures and lack of snow. Ski resorts were covered in bare dirt, while January temperatures in southern California topped July highs.
Then, out of the blue, Europe got clobbered: Over the past two weeks, temperatures in Eastern Europe have nose-dived to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). Blizzards and the bone-chilling cold have resulted in the deaths of over 550 people so far, with rooftop-high snow drifts trapping tens of thousands of villagers in their homes and cutting off access to entire towns. It has even snowed as far south as North Africa.
NASA climatologist Bill Patzert of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains what happened: "A couple of weeks ago, Mother Nature did an about face. The tight polar vortex that had bottled up the cold arctic air in the beginning of winter suddenly weakened. Cold air swept out of Siberia and invaded Europe and the Far East."
The "tight polar vortex" is caused by the Arctic Oscillation (AO), a see-sawing pressure difference between the Arctic and lower latitudes. When the pressure difference is high, a whirlpool of air forms around the North Pole. Thats what happened earlier this winter: the whirlpool was more forceful, corralling the cold air and keeping it nearer the pole.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/16feb_deepfreeze/
catbyte
(34,390 posts)It's been really mild here in Michigan. I thought they were predicting a harsher than normal winter but we haven't really even had a decent snowstorm this season.
bluerum
(6,109 posts)No snow (drought?) and nice mild temps. Winter is two thirds over afaic.
seeviewonder
(461 posts)Only amounted to about 5 inches which is far from normal.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts):hoppinmadsmilie:
Warpy
(111,261 posts)and it was the first snow since the first week of December. I wish winter would come here. Our temperatures have been about normal but El Nino is keeping us dry, dry, dry.
Denninmi
(6,581 posts)for most of the continental US east of the Rockies, anyway, they are predicting above-normal temps for the rest of the winter season (well, they define winter in a screwy way, to them it's Dec, Jan, Feb).
MARCH 2012 Outlook Map from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center:
Three Month Lead Forecast Map for March-April-May 2011 form the NOAA CPC:
Javaman
(62,530 posts)semillama
(4,583 posts)It's kind of shocking to me, who grew up in a region where March is considered one of the winter months...