Europe's winter onslaught continues unabated this week, with very cold temperatures and heavy snows over much of the continent. Yesterday, a rare snow storm hit North Africa, bringing 2 - 3 inches of snow to Tripoli, Libya. It was the first snow in Tripoli since at least 2005, and may be the heaviest snow the Libyan capital has seen since February 6, 1956. Across Europe, at least 250 deaths have been blamed on the winter weather since the cold spell began on January 26. Hardest hit has been Ukraine, with 135 deaths--mostly of homeless people. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the current cold snap is the most severe for Europe since February 1991.
Figure 1. The scene in Tripoli, Libya, on February 6, 2012, after a rare snowstorm. Image credit: libyall.com.
Unusual jet stream kink causing Europe's harsh winter weather
The reason for the exceptionally cold and snowy winter weather in Europe lies in the behavior of the jet stream. The jet stream--the band of strong west-to-east blowing upper-level winds that circles the globe at mid-latitudes--acts as the dividing line between cold, polar air to the north, and warmer subtropical air to the south. On average, the jet blows straight west to east. But this winter, the jet has had a highly convoluted shape, with unusually large excursions to the north and south. When the jet bulges southwards, it allows cold air to spill in behind it, and that is what has happened to Europe over the past two weeks. The jet often gets "stuck" in one of these highly convoluted shapes, allowing a persistent period of extreme weather to occur. The latest predictions from the GFS and ECMWF models show the unusual jet stream pattern over Europe persisting for at least another week.
Figure 2. The jet stream pattern over Europe shows that the jet is taking a major dive southwards across France and into North Africa, keeping almost all of Europe on the cold (north) side of the jet.
The AO and NAO
A good measure of the tendency of the jet to form major bulges in winter is the Arctic Oscillation (AO) Index, which has ranged between -1 and -3 over the past two weeks. A strongly negative AO Index like this means the winds of the jet are relatively weak, allowing it to sag southwards over Europe and allow cold air to plunge southwards behind it. Usually, a negative AO also means cold winter weather over North America, but not this winter. In North America, we're better off paying attention to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index, which we can think of as the Northern Atlantic portion of the AO. Ordinarily, the AO and NAO are in phase during winter (about 80 - 90% of the time), meaning that Europe and North America experience similar winter weather. However, over the past two weeks, the NAO has been positive while the AO has been negative. The positive NAO means that jet stream winds have been strong over North America and the North Atlantic, keeping cold air bottled up to the north over Canada and the Arctic. This pattern is predicted to persist for at least another week. We've seen many record extremes of both the positive and negative phase of the AO since 2006; see that latest post by Andrew Freedman of climatecentral.org to learn more.
Jeff Masters
A view of Rome: the Stadio Olimpico
First snow of the winter stops public transport.
Croatia - Dalmatia - Trogir
cyclone Gabor, snow in Dalmatia, frozen streets....sounds impossible but it happened ! Snow is still present. In this part of world this is phenomena
Croatia - Dalmatia - Trogir
Riva - corso in blizzard
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It was up there for a while...then I refreshed and it was gone.
Freedom has a price
Lawyers get paid more.
XD
They're all liars. You just have to figure which one tells the least amount of lies.
Jesse
Instead of regurgitating GOP talking points, might I suggest a less partisan source of information such as factcheck.org. Link
Or if people don't want to click the link:
Q: Does the new health care law impose a 3.8 percent tax on profits from selling your home?
A: No, with very few exceptions. The first $250,000 in profit from the sale of a personal residence won't be taxed, or the first $500,000 in the case of a married couple. The tax falls on relatively few of those with high incomes from other sources.
So unless you can sell for a significant amount of profit, you're not going to be seeing any sales tax on your home.
It didn't instigate it, but according to theory it did "help it along" by influencing the expansion.
Quoting GeoffreyWPB:
What Is Déjà Vu?
I could have sworn you asked that before.
On a weather note... we have had a goodly amount of rain in Palm Beach county the last few days.
Some years have big sal outbreaks than other years depending on how strong are the trade winds in the Atlantic.
It's rare to see such a strong (light green/blue on the top frame) at all.. MX really needs this.
Yeah I saw something over the weekend about the severe drought Mexico is dealing with. P.S It looks as if Melbourne will finally break this long dry streak on Saturday. I think you guys are at 43 days with no rain so far.
That streak was broken yesterday. They had .004.
I really I wasn't aware thanks! I know we in C FL are in need of a good soaking so I hope this weekends rain event pans out.
If youre looking for another real above hurricane season 2012 isnt looking to active as the appearance of el nino is looking more and more probable with each passing day. ECMWF as of now has well above MSLP anomaly and pressures just about basin wide. As always just takes 1 over your city.
That Texas drought just won't go away!
You can already tell that the atmosphere is beginning to respond with the recent drops in the SOI values. Also there's been lots of convection in the E-Pac as of late feeding moisture into these troughs as they dig toward the Gulf. FL should see a very wet second half of February especially mid next week as a big rain maker settles in across the eastern Gulf.
Most all freshwater in Florida runs North to South, making the main replenishing areas between Orlando and Lake Okeechobee.
Summer months usually bring most of the rain, mainly during normal years from afternoon rain showers or either tropical storms and hurricanes. This is when the most of the water levels rise in Lake Okeechobee the fastest. During the winter months the water levels in Okeechobee will consistently fall from January thru June. The lake fishes like most rivers…much better on a fall tide vs a rising tide.
Current levels are 13.2ft. The needed rain should raise the levels around a foot depending how much rain falls to the north of the lake!
Bring on the MJO!
Doomsday Preppers
Whatever the future holds, it's not bright. Debt is a major issue for the globe, throw in regular natural disasters and there's no funding to rebuild, basically escalates the situation and you're basically back in the stone age because of lack of funding and money. Were sitting ducks.
I had 0.05" yesterday & a trace a few times.
Getting desperate for rain.. all this perfect weather is gonna burn us up without some rain.
My big issue is the Obama administration taking Border guards with Mexico off the border, and having the Department of Interior state, the Federal lands on the Mexican Border are Wild Life sanctuary, or perserves, so no Law Enforcement Officers are allowed, (they might hurt the ECO system). Hundreds of Humans are killed each year in Pima County AZ. alone!
2010: 249 deaths
2011: 214 deaths
Hamas and Hezbollah, are partnering with the drug cartels and have camps throughout Central America, to infiltrate the United States, and this administration has a hands off policy for law enforcement.
Am I just nuts, or is our Country in big danger from within and externally?
Actually, money itself is the problem: artificial economics, especially financial markets which inflate, deflate, and otherwise falsify the value of goods and services.
do you think anyone died during the colonial period due to lack of money? Of course not.
The colonists worked together and did what was right for one another, because it was the right thing to do.
We have thousands of homeless people in the same nation that also has about a million vacant homes right now, due to greed and a broken financial system; really a completely broken system of both government and economics.
And then we have multi-national corporations, which take the inventions of their workers, which were often funded by our government's loans and grant money, or subsidies, and patent them, due to clauses in everyone's contract with their employer which forfeits all rights to your own ideas just so you can keep a job, and then the corporations move over seas to produce the product and sell out the technology to other nations.
This is treason.
Further, the way modern patents are given is not supported by the constitution anyway.
The constitution gives patent rights to the ORIGINAL AUTHOR OR INVENTOR, not corporations and abstract entities. In fact, the indication fro the text is that patents are supposed to be temporary, so that the original author can make some money off it and benefit from it, and eventually expire and become public domain.
What we have today is when a corporation has a patent, they own it forever, and sue anyone who tries to do anything similar.
It's got to the point Apple sued Samsung for having a handheld computer with rounded edge...AND WON.
Clearly, that is a corrupt legal system that no rational person would respect or honor.
It costs the U.S. government about 2 cents to make a penny, and nearly 10 cents to make a nickel, because the value of the metals and the machinery to do the coining is more than the face value of the coin. Yet they do this anyway, at a net loss!
Just one more example of complete insanity among leadership.
Money and artificial economics are the problem.
Not the solution.
So do we have to destroy our current form of economic system to achieve your agenda?
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