Topic: The big-freeze: thousands trapped in europe as death toll rises to 600

[Pandora]

Oddly enough     I have heard or read virtually nothing about this.

And who wants Global Warming when you can face avalanches, deep snow, and record cold?

How much fun can you have with 2 meters of snow on your house, and none of that evil coal powered electricity?

What’s happening in Europe and Russia over the last two weeks is not just your average cold-snap. Temperatures reached -28C in Moscow. One point in Russia hit -52.8C (-68F) on Monday.
 
MOSCOW — Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over 600. [National Post]

The Danube has frozen over from Austria to the Black Sea, and 224 ships (some delivering fuel) have been stuck in their ports. Schools in Bosnia have been closed for days. Trains in Montenegroare at a standstill, and one train with 50 passengers was stranded in a tunnel for three days before rescuers began evacuating people yesterday.

In Serbia 11,000 villagers are trapped by huge snowfalls as temperatures hit – 26C in one town  (Al jazeera puts the figure at 70,000 people), and some Bosnian villages haven’t had electricity for days.

Hundreds of barns are collapsing under the snow, killing the animals below, and prompting Tom Nelson to write “Children won’t know what barns look like”.

For the first time in over 30 years, snow has fallen in the Sahara Desert.

Alan Caruba found a Turkish writer lamenting the waste and misdirection of millions of dollars spent on the Green global warming bureaucracy instead of preparations to save lives.

   Writing in a Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News, Sophie Quintin Adali, an analyst for a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, said, “As if the debt crisis weren’t bad enough news, the climate freeze sweeping across Europe is wreaking havoc by severely disrupting travel, business and people’s lives. Local authorities, indeed whole countries, are caught poorly prepared.” Turkey is experiencing record snowfall and low temperatures.

    “The lack of readiness should come as no surprise because for decades the sensationalist message of global warming has dominated the public area,” said Ms. Adali.

    “Politicians and decades of political environmentalism have a lot to answer for,” said Ms. Adali. “The man-made climate theory…is still supported by a mighty European Union bureaucracy and a green network addicted to public funds.” Even now, the Green Climate Fund “through which millions of taxpayer’s money will still be disbursed” is threatening the lives and the economy of people worldwide.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t recall seeing many headlines over the last week about this phenomenal cold. Now if 600 had died from a heat wave we’d all know that an oil pipeline was to blame.

Time to treat climate research as a science instead of a religion?

The image above comes from the NASA Earth Observatory. Their explanation of the extreme cold is due to Jet Streams:
Masters explains that the unusual cold is a product of the jet stream. Jet streams are bands of strong, upper-atmospheric winds that blow from west to east around the globe. These bands roughly separate colder air at higher latitudes from warmer air at middle to low latitudes, and they generally blow straight west to east. “But this winter, the jet has had a highly convoluted shape, with unusually large excursions to the north and south,” Masters states. “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.” When the jet stream adheres to a convoluted pattern for long enough, extreme weather can result.

There is a fabulous photo montage at the National Post.

France remained in the tight grip of the big freeze on Wednesday with over two thirds of the country still on high alert because of treacherous conditions.

On Tuesday evening electricity consumption hit record levels in the country despite warnings being issued to save power during the cold snap.

National weather service Météo France predicted minimum temperatures could drop as low as -12°C on Wednesday.

...

There were concerns on Tuesday that parts of France would be hit by power blackouts as the levels of electricity consumption soared as people turned up their heating to battle the big chill.

At the peak time of 7pm on Tuesday, electricity consumption hit a total of 100.500 megawatts (MW) beating the previous record of 96.71 megawatts set in 2010.

RTE, the company that runs the national grid, has assured the public that they would be able to cope with the soaring levels of power and stated that there will not be power cuts.

But in Brittany, a region vulnerable to power outages, residents have been advised to reduce the amount of electricity used.

In the southwest of France, thousands of homes in Toulouse, as well as several schools and a retirement home were left without heating during the freezing conditions after a heating system failed.

Russian Ships Trapped in Frozen Azov Sea

Ships are trapped by ice in the frozen Azov Sea, as unusually cold weather sweeps across Russia's southern regions. Travis Brecher reports.

What are those ships carrying?  As I understand it, coal.

[Libertas]

I guess another little ice age without any man-made nuclear winter to account for it really isn't anything the globullwarmink/climatescaremongers can report on...



Nice map, lots of pretty colors!

[Alphabet Soup]

Oddly enough     I have heard or read virtually nothing about this.

The only reason I had is because of the 'winger web sites I frequent 
I got curious and did some poking around. I'm not curious enough to dirty myself with huffpo or DU but I did try PMSNBC and CNN. Nothing at the official DNC Propaganda site but CNN had this:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/world/europe/italy-snow-damage-colosseum-monuments/index.html?iref=allsearch

They just buried it under what the paparazzi at the Whitney Houston show was wearing.

[Libertas]

It's those polar vortex things, just not working right, of course some bullsh*t man-made artifice has to be constructed to take the blame so that trillions in national wealth can be extorted and put into the hands of megalomaniacs bent upon the ultimate "final solution" for mankind - complete servitude to New World Order oligarchs.  If only there was good enough bullsh*t they could spread...

[ToddF]

They're just now starting to climb out of it.  For Obamas and giggles, go to Weather Underground, type in your favorite city, and just look at the havoc.

For example, Prague

Feb 1 Actual 21/6, Average, 35/25
Feb 2 15/1, 36/25
Feb 3 14/-2, 36/26
Feb 4 17/3, 37/26
Feb 5 15/3, 37/26
Feb 6 12/-2, 37/26
Feb 7 12/5, 37/26
Feb 8 19/6, 37/27
Feb 9 21/8, 38/27
Feb 10 15/0, 38/27
Feb 11 14/-4, 38/27
Feb 12 21/-7, 38/27

Then it starts warming back up to normal.  That is Europe wide.  Snow in Rome, sub zero (F) in Italy.  I think it was Algeria that it snowed in, also.

[ToddF]

Kiev hit as hard as anybody

[Pandora]

Coincidentally, we got two inches of snow here in NC last evening.  Most of it has already melted away, though.

[Weisshaupt]

They're just now starting to climb out of it.  For Obamas and giggles, go to Weather Underground, type in your favorite city, and just look at the havoc.

For example, Prague

Feb 1 Actual 21/6, Average, 35/25
Feb 2 15/1, 36/25
Feb 3 14/-2, 36/26
Feb 4 17/3, 37/26
Feb 5 15/3, 37/26
Feb 6 12/-2, 37/26
Feb 7 12/5, 37/26
Feb 8 19/6, 37/27
Feb 9 21/8, 38/27
Feb 10 15/0, 38/27
Feb 11 14/-4, 38/27
Feb 12 21/-7, 38/27

Then it starts warming back up to normal.  That is Europe wide.  Snow in Rome, sub zero (F) in Italy.  I think it was Algeria that it snowed in, also.

Huh. Those seem like standard winter temps to me. Little cold for Denver normal, but not outside the realm of experience.  At my cabin, temps -10F at night are NORMAL. for most of January.   How can Europe cope with North American winter norms?

[Alphabet Soup]

Coincidentally, we got two inches of snow here in NC last evening.  Most of it has already melted away, though.

I don't think that I even mentioned it but a couple of weeks ago we had a rare (for our area) combination snow and ice storm that took out power to over 700k users (most everybody in western Washington) for up to a week.

I hardly noticed it because of the doomsday prepping I've done.

The house was warm, I brought in some also affected family to stay with me, we cooked over the woodstove, and the only bummer was that we lost portions of some of my favorite trees from the ice accumulation. Almost the entire neighborhood evacuated because of lack of electricity. I now know better who is prepared and who isn't (my next door neighbor).

[Pandora]

Coincidentally, we got two inches of snow here in NC last evening.  Most of it has already melted away, though.

I don't think that I even mentioned it but a couple of weeks ago we had a rare (for our area) combination snow and ice storm that took out power to over 700k users (most everybody in western Washington) for up to a week.

I hardly noticed it because of the doomsday prepping I've done.

The house was warm, I brought in some also affected family to stay with me, we cooked over the woodstove, and the only bummer was that we lost portions of some of my favorite trees from the ice accumulation. Almost the entire neighborhood evacuated because of lack of electricity. I now know better who is prepared and who isn't (my next door neighbor).

I think I remember that.  So, were people in the area warned the storm was coming or was it a surprise?

[IronDioPriest]

...and here in Minnesota we've had a shockingly warm and snow-free winter. None of the prolonged subzero cold-snaps that the state is known for, and very little snowfall. Certainly very little snow that has fallen has stuck, because it keeps warming up and melting.

Normally we'll fall into some kind of deep freeze around the first of the year, and we never really climb out of it until sometime mid-to-late-February. This year, 30s, 40s, and even a few days with 50s were the norm in January, and February has been holding around the 30s & 40s for highs, and occasional 20s. We're nearing the time of year now when traditionally the real bad subzero cold snaps are done for the year, and temps will usually moderate to what we've been experiencing so far in February. So unless things turn now to unseasonably cold temps, it would seem that we escaped this winter with no "Minnesota winter". Highly unusual.

Everyone I know of any age says they do not remember a winter this warm and snowless in MN, ever. I concur.

Last year it was bitter, bitter cold, with long cold snaps, and lots of snow. And July was extremely wet, when July is usually bone-dry.

Weird weather happening, for sure. Weird enough to feed the imaginations of the cultists.

[Libertas]

I heard someone on the radio today say that for most people over 40, they'll likely not see a warm winter like this again in their lifetime.  When they put things like that I kinda hate it, I'm still here, damn it!

Anyway, looks like the sloppy snow season is about to get us though IDP.  2-4" of snow by morning and flurries and temps in the mid-20's to upper 30's next few days.

MY BIL will like that, he's only gone out plowing twice this season.

[Alphabet Soup]

I think I remember that.  So, were people in the area warned the storm was coming or was it a surprise?

Almost a full day notice. I had obligations so I couldn't prepare in the immediate sense but stopped off at the store on my way through and noticed that folks were doing a decent job of attending to their most pressing concerns (grocery-wise).

What got us wasn't the snow - although I got eight inches - it was the next day when it sleeted on top of the snow with a fine mist that froze as it hit the ground. I had gone out and knocked the snow off of the greenhouse and as many of the tree branches as I could reach but ended up losing a couple dozen anyway when the combined weight of snow and ice ripped them down.

[Pandora]

I think I remember that.  So, were people in the area warned the storm was coming or was it a surprise?

Almost a full day notice. I had obligations so I couldn't prepare in the immediate sense but stopped off at the store on my way through and noticed that folks were doing a decent job of attending to their most pressing concerns (grocery-wise).

What got us wasn't the snow - although I got eight inches - it was the next day when it sleeted on top of the snow with a fine mist that froze as it hit the ground. I had gone out and knocked the snow off of the greenhouse and as many of the tree branches as I could reach but ended up losing a couple dozen anyway when the combined weight of snow and ice ripped them down.

What does that mean, you "couldn't prepare in the immediate sense"?  Sounds like you were well-prepared and did a food-store run to boot.

It's not enough that folks tend to their most pressing concerns in event of a storm, although I'd give a little credit where due.  It sounds like most of the folks in your 'hood cannot deal at all with the unexpected.

Oh well.  Come TSHTF time, they'll bug out (although to where I have no clue) and you'll have your pick of whatever they leave behind.