Frozen around the world
In the past couple of days, I have received emails from several of my friends who are television weathercasters around the world. Hopefully they won’t mind if I share their comments, because I found their reports fascinating. (One reminder – the temperature values mentioned are in Celsius, so a temperature report of -10 to -15 really means +5 to +14 Fahrenheit.)
Jill Peeters – VTM in Brussels, Belgium: “All the papers and the television news of the day were talking about the snow we had last night. We now had some snow: up to 2-12 cm. Not that much compared to other countries, but we’re not really used to it. Tonight polar air is coming in and we’re expecting one of the coldest nights of this winter, with temperatures between -6 (coast) and -12°C. Tomorrow we’ll face an ice day with max temperatures around -2 to -7°C, probably the coldest day of this winter and in the top 5 of coldest 6th of January since 1833.”
Francis Wilson – Sky TV in London: “Here in the UK it’s the coldest spell since 1996. This night we will have our coldest at -12. No sig snow. But odd snow flurries have made the news.”
Claire Martin – CBC in British Columbia: “Western Canada is suffering right now too. Vancouver recently got clobbered with 41 cm of snow (Xmas night through Boxing Day), and has seen 20 straight days of below seasonal temps. We ended Dec with 89.0 cm of snow (all time Dec record for snow 89.7 cm). The avalanche threat remains extreme for most of the entire western Rockies.. we had a very shallow early snow pack, followed by some frigid weather. The Arctic air literally sucked the moisture out of that early snow pack, turning if fine and sugary.. the recent heavy snow is therefore falling on a very precarious base. We have had 15 avalanche deaths so far, two in Whistler (host of the Olympics next winter). The Prairies continue to see morning temps in the -40 deg C mark, wind chills close to -48.”
Jean-Christophe Vincendon – Meteo-France: “In France, ’snow’ and ‘cold’ are the two principal words in the media. Around 5 cm of snow yesterday in the north, including Paris. Snow is now forecasted for the next hours in the south-east (5/10cm possible between Avignon, Marseille and Nice). And now (it’s 7PM), temperature is -9°c in Paris. I think it could be around -12°c tomorrow in the morning!”
Frank Cavallaro – CBC in Montreal: “As of today Jan 5th, 2009 Montreal has already picked up almost 110 cm of snow. The record is 383 cm for a whole winter, so we’re well on our way to a record.”
And then there’s this…
Dr. Jose Rubiera – Cuban TV in Havana: “In Cuba we’ve had splendid sunshine weather and higher than normal temperatures from mid-December through these days, corresponding with little exchange between the tropics and higher latitudes.. But the period from mid-November to the beginning of December was cold (to us) with lows up to 8 Celsius degrees in some stations and around 21 degrees in afternoon highs. From January 7th, however, another “cold” spell is forecasted with cold fronts arriving to Western Cuba again in a row. Water temperatures are around 26C, so tourists are enjoying beach resorts!”
