[HN Gopher] Central Spain records temperatures of -25degC after ...
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Central Spain records temperatures of -25degC after snowstorm
Author : zeristor
Score : 145 points
Date : 2021-01-12 20:23 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| maaaaattttt wrote:
| To put this in context as well, most places (at the least in the
| southern parts of Spain) don't have central heating systems or
| proper insulation. A fireplace or reversible A/C if you're lucky.
| saool wrote:
| I wouldn't extrapolate.
|
| Most places in Spain have and need heating, apart from a few
| coastal enclaves in the south. Spain is the 5th largest user of
| energy for residential heating in the EU, behind Germany,
| France, Italy, and Poland.
| dieortin wrote:
| In the central parts of Spain they do have heating systems and
| proper insulation. Winters are cold there, just not as cold as
| this year.
| cs702 wrote:
| For those accustomed to US/Imperial units, -25x9/5+32=-13degF.
| Temperatures in Madrid dropped to -16degC (3degF).
|
| As others here have mentioned, these temperatures are unusually
| low for January in this region of Spain. They are the kinds of
| temperatures one would have seen in January during the "Little
| Ice Age" between the 15th and 19th centuries.[a][b][c]
|
| Let's hope this unusual drop in temperature is just a "one-off"
| rare climate event, and not a portend of things to come.
|
| --
|
| [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
|
| [b] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/how-the-
| little...
|
| [c] http://www.iberianature.com/material/iceage.html
| baxtr wrote:
| Wasn't this kinda expected? It's an El Nino year I believe?
| Australian summer is also colder than usual I think.
|
| EDIT: Seems like it's a "La nina" Winter...
| ben_w wrote:
| The average minimum in Madrid in January is +3degC, and
| -3degC in Molina de Aragon, so no.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Madrid
|
| https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/spain/molina-de-aragon-
| clim...
| knowhy wrote:
| According to Wikipedia [0] that should not affect Europe.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ni%C3%B1a#/media/File:La_
| Ni...
| nojokes wrote:
| In principle snow is good. It is better than rain as it will
| not flow quickly away. Melting snow lets more water to sink
| into ground and build up water table.
| throw0101a wrote:
| As someone who lives in Canada: you don't have to shovel
| rain.
| serf wrote:
| as a former citizen of Huntington Beach CA during the 1997
| El Nino storms, i'd take the snow.
|
| I have the newspaper clipping of my grandmother being
| rescued from her home via dinghy by city rescue workers.
| Everyone I knew had their house ruined in hours after weeks
| of shoveling sandbags fruitlessly in front of the
| neighborhoods and homes.
|
| And that was just the flood damage and personal effect ,
| itself.
|
| Untold amounts of environmental and biological damage
| occurred when sea-levels were temporarily higher than any
| of the sanitation and oil-recollection facilities that were
| in town.
|
| That said , snow _sucks_ , but i'd rather sweep it off my
| roof and winterize my plumbing than attempting to figure
| out the physics behind flood-proofing acres of land (almost
| always fruitlessly) and having to surf in sewage for years
| past the event.
| dsego wrote:
| There is a funny joke about a Bosnian in Canada, you may
| appreciate it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3dcn
| 76/the_diary_of_...
| PeterisP wrote:
| It absolutely is an example of things to come - scenarios like
| this are caused by the weakened polar vortex that generally
| separates European weather from Arctic weather; the polar
| vortex has become weaker over the last years because of recent
| climate change / regional warming, and it is strongly expected
| to become even weaker in the coming decade(s), making weather
| like this more frequent.
| waheoo wrote:
| Is this related to the polar vortex collapse discussed just
| the other day, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25713704
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| This isn't related to the polar vortex splitting, this _is_
| the polar vortex that has split. This is a part of the cold
| air mass that normally sits on the North Pole, but on top
| of Spain. Normally the cold arctic air spins around the
| north pole stably because it is cold and low pressure in
| the northern hemisphere winter. Warm air intruded into it,
| destabilized it, and it spun out into lower latitudes with
| corresponding intrusions of equally hot temperatures
| elsewhere (Tibetan plateau https://twitter.com/extremetemps
| /status/1348693028022738951/...)
| nextos wrote:
| It looks unusual, and I agree with you that it might be an
| example of the things to come. But I'd love to see an
| analysis of snowstorms in central Spain using extreme value
| theory. It might not be that infrequent. In EVT terms, the
| return level might not be more than a few decades.
|
| Central Spain is quite cold. For example, when the
| International Brigades came to fight in the Civil War they
| were expecting a mild Winter, but they were shocked by pretty
| extreme temperatures. Luckily, everyone got prepared as next
| few years were even worse. In 1937, Teruel Battle was
| consistently fought below -20 C.
|
| Aside from 1937, 1956 and 1971 saw pretty intense snowstorms.
| The 1971 one was much worse than the current storm according
| to the data I've seen.
| evgen wrote:
| I believe that this is due to the recent collapse of this
| year's polar vortex. The same thing happened last year and
| pushed large amounts of cold polar air into Europe. We are
| expecting a few more waves of this over the next few weeks.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Wouldn't a little ice age be great right about now? Then we can
| burn all the oil we want and be helping stay within our
| temperature bounds, not blowing through them.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Not an expert by any means, but...
|
| The issue is that this is caused by the collapse of standard
| weather systems.
|
| This isn't a sign of an ice age, it's the sign of
| instability.
| GnarfGnarf wrote:
| That's brutal. What kind of heating do these people have? Central
| heating, or electric registers in some rooms?
| spapas82 wrote:
| Wow that's really strange because here in Greece we have probably
| the hottest January of the last years with temperatures around
| 20c!
| _Microft wrote:
| It's not that surprising. While climate change is often
| discussed in terms of increasing average temperature, the
| change will come with much larger variations than we are
| currently experiencing. A lot of these extremes will ,average
| out' but that won't make hot summers or cold winters less
| unpleasant (or deadly).
| mobilio wrote:
| In Bulgaria too.
|
| But this weekend temperatures are going to drop to -10 to -15.
| renedet wrote:
| Where's the global warming(lie)?
| tgv wrote:
| It's been called (anthropogenic) climate change because of
| insipid replies like yours. It's like my daughter saying that's
| she having social interaction because she's looking at tiktok,
| "and it's called social media."
| kube-system wrote:
| weather =/= climate
|
| Climate is more or less the average weather over time. Think
| about it this way:
|
| Let's pretend (and for the sake of simplifying the problem), we
| have a tiny planet with only two equally sized places, A and B.
| And here's the seasonal temperatures for each:
| (winter/spring/summer/autumn)
|
| A: 10, 20, 30, 20
|
| B: 15, 25, 35, 25
|
| The global average temperature (if you average all the numbers)
| is: 22.5
|
| Now, lets say numbers change to this:
|
| A: 8, 22, 30, 20
|
| B: 12, 28, 35, 27
|
| Now the global average temperature has _increased_ by a 0.25
| degree to 22.75. But all of these things are also true:
|
| 1. A didn't get any warmer in year 2 than it did in year 1.
|
| 2. Both places got _colder_ during the winter.
|
| 3. B only got 2 degrees warmer than last year.
|
| 4. The largest temperature fluctuation is 60% more extreme in
| year 1 than in year 2.
|
| Now, expand this example to the thousands of places that we
| measure weather on earth and you can see why the weather in one
| location would contribute statistically very little to the
| overall climate.
| jwcacces wrote:
| This is global warming. The globe as a whole gets warmer, and
| the weather gets more erratic.
|
| See:
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/clima...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/01/30/this...
|
| https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/12/if-global-warming...
|
| or anything else you get when you search "global warming colder
| winters"
| eznzt wrote:
| Global warming at its finest.
| paulintrognon wrote:
| *climate change ;)
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was
| established in 1988, 32 years ago.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Cli...
| _nothing wrote:
| You can't have gone the past couple decades without anyone
| pointing out there's a difference between weather and climate,
| so I'm assuming you understand the difference but choose to
| ignore it in hopes that there will be people ignorant enough to
| believe you.
| bfieidhbrjr wrote:
| Maybe we could ban them like Parler for all the WrongThink!
| just_steve_h wrote:
| I know you're being snarky, but it actually IS likely a result
| of anthropogenic climate change! The north polar region is
| warming much faster than most places on the globe. Without its
| usual thick mass of ice, the region isn't cold enough to
| sustain the usual "polar vortex." Global models have been
| predicting for weeks that the vortex would split, and a lobe of
| very cold air would spin off over Europe, causing record cold
| temps.
|
| The debates are over and we are already living with the
| consequences of burning up so much fossil fuel. But your snark
| is, uh, really funny! Ha ha!
| imnotlost wrote:
| Snow in Madrid is definitely unusual but Spain gets snow every
| year.
|
| "You can go to Puerto de Navacerrada for a few hours of skiing
| then return to Madrid to continue visiting the many attractions
| in Europe's fourth-largest city."
|
| https://www.justapack.com/best-ski-resorts-in-spain-ski-reso...
| harperlee wrote:
| It used to be more frequent. When I was in school, there was at
| least a day per winter when snow would not melt and you woke up
| to whit(ish) streets in Madrid (city). Nothing that jammed
| traffic or made us skip school by far, but you got some snow to
| throw around. Currently that does not happen; and when it
| happens it seems heavier. Last traffic-disrupting snowfall was
| 2009 in Madrid.
|
| In Madrid (region), at less than an hour driving, we have a
| Sierra where we used to have 3 skiing stations. Now we only
| have 2 (Navacerrada and Valdesqui) because Cotos had to close.
| And snow melts more quickly. My father always boasts that he
| once skied in the Madrid Sierra on May 15th, and with current
| climate that's difficult to believe. But I've seen how the
| skiing season gets shorter year after year. 15 years ago
| everybody made plans for going skiing to the Pyrenees on the
| Inmaculada holiday (early November), and currently all bets are
| off even for the Constitution holiday (early December).
| tgv wrote:
| But that's over a kilometer higher.
| raarts wrote:
| For those interested in events like this. There's a guy[1] that
| collects reports on cold weather records and maintains a mailing
| list.
|
| He's a wonky guy and kinda bent on the solar minimum but if you
| can see past that, his list does a good job of reporting on cold
| extremes across the world.
|
| [1] electroverse.net
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| This is killing temperature even for the hardiest palm. So I'm
| wondering how much of their mature trees and landscaping will be
| destroyed
| kace91 wrote:
| The city of Madrid, where I live, is currently full of fallen
| trees. I went for a walk a couple days ago and could count
| easily 10-20 just in the nearby streets.
|
| It's been pretty chaotic, since we're not used to snow at all.
| After 4 days roads are still unusable, supermarkets can't
| restock shelves...The city's pretty much stopped.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| -16C, as has been recorded in Madrid, is definitely lethal for
| olive trees.
|
| I don't know about the temperatures in the all of Spain or
| where the main olive orchards are but that has the potential
| for being devastating for growers.
| yk wrote:
| So "Day after tomorrow" is the SF film that came true?
| tpmx wrote:
| No. It sometimes gets very cold in the mountains.
| duxup wrote:
| >This woman in Madrid was doing her best to deal with the icy
| conditions on Monday
|
| No... not hot water to melt the ice and then have it freeze
| again.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It was comical, but also sad, seeing people doing that in
| middle Georgia (US state, not country) a few years back when we
| had an unusual (for the area) cold spell with a lot of ice.
| Very few had scrapers and brushes for their cars to clear them
| so I was cleaning a lot of neighbors' cars while my own car was
| warming up.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Isn't pouring boiling hot water on car glass a pretty certain
| way to shatter them by thermal stress?!
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It could, though I've never seen it happen when people
| tried it. It usually just refreezes and scraping (plus
| running the car heater) is the better option.
| pengaru wrote:
| It's predicted that Europe will get colder due to climate change.
| "Europe will get cold toes" - NASA [0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DldSBIja2Kw&t=46s
| qayxc wrote:
| Only Spain isn't Europe - meanwhile 12deg further north,
| temperatures are normal (even a bit on the warmer side) for the
| season.
|
| A single night of record breaking low temperatures doesn't mean
| much. 24 years ago today, it was -18degC in my little corner of
| the world, the next night it was more than 12degC warmer
| already.
|
| Freak weather extremes will increase in both intensity and
| frequency, but doomsday predictions usually don't hold much
| water as we know too little about the system as a whole and the
| feedback mechanisms involved.
| loosetypes wrote:
| These same areas have also seen increasingly warmer summers in
| recent times, right?
|
| While it may be hard to speculate short and long term regional
| changes, does anyone have a recommendations for interactive tools
| to explore, say, monthly temperatures for a given area for the
| past however many years?
| cal5k wrote:
| Cold-blooded Canadian here, so forgive me for asking - is this
| highly unusual?
| darthcoder4242 wrote:
| I am from Madrid, and I can tell this is in fact highly
| unusual. From time to time it might snow in Madrid a couple of
| days, but nothing like this. In the mountains of course it
| happen almost every year, but not in the plains...
|
| All the cities in central Spain are collapsed by the ice and
| snow (including the capital), there are no public
| transportation, emergencies services can barely make it into
| affected zones, a lot of people don't have water supply because
| of frozen pipes (including myself), trucks with food and
| supplies are still stuck and cannot enter in the city...
|
| This chaos is of course because we are not prepared for this
| extreme cold weather, and we are not prepared because this is
| VERY unusual.
|
| Let's say this is the same unusual as in the covid-19
| pandemic,nobody would have imagined it a year ago.
| Jare wrote:
| I remember back in 1984 or so, we once had snow in Madrid in
| May. Younger people laugh at me as if I'm just making that up,
| but what has just happened is way more unusual.
| otoburb wrote:
| ... and we wonder why so many Canadians move down south to
| California or Florida. Even cold-blooded reptiles like basking
| in the sun once in a while.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It's no colder in most of Canada (the most populated parts)
| than most of the midwest or the northeast. Average
| temperatures in the winter in Toronto are only slightly
| colder than NYC.
|
| Yes, where I'm originally from in central Alberta, it gets
| cold as hell. But most of the population of Ontario (the most
| populous province) lives significantly south of the 49th
| parallel, on the same latitude as much of Oregon. Further
| south than Vermont, Maine, or New Hampshire, and due to
| weather patterns this side of the lake is actually a tad
| warmer on average than the south side in central NY.
|
| TDLR: Most of Canada isn't as cold as the stereotypes. Lots
| of Americans live in colder areas.
| RspecMAuthortah wrote:
| Yeah I am one of those cold blooded Canadians. Weird thing is
| if you look at what's going in Canadian real estate, the
| shitty weather is not reflected in price at all.
|
| Weather and the high cost of living in all the major Canadian
| cities (compared to the average tech income) were the two
| main reasons wife and I decided to move down South. Don't
| regret it for a moment.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't Canadian real estate mostly a parking spot for
| foreign capital these days, and has nothing to do with the
| actual demand of people living there?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Weird thing is if you look at what's going in Canadian
| real estate, the shitty weather is not reflected in price
| at all.
|
| Some Chinese investor needing a safe heaven for their
| assets (and/or, in case some purge happens like with Jack
| Ma, for their family) that can't be seized at random by the
| CCP does not care at all about the weather, only about the
| country showing a spine to China. That is why the real
| estate market of Canada is so thoroughly messed up - a
| third of Vancouver's market, for example, was Chinese
| (https://www.fortunebuilders.com/one-third-of-vancouvers-
| real...).
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, in terms of weather, it's all relative.
|
| Canada can get quite cold, but Vancouver is actually
| relatively moderate and is borderline Mediterranean due
| to its west coast location. Beijing gets both much colder
| and much hotter on a regular basis.
|
| Also, air quality in Vancouver is significantly better
| than in Beijing, which would have more impact on living
| conditions than just climate by itself.
| antiman0 wrote:
| Spain almost never sees degrees below 0degC [1].
|
| [1] https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/spain
| marvel_boy wrote:
| Not true. In the north range mountains there are below zero
| temperatures every winter.
| madia_leva wrote:
| Spain has very different climates. I live only 30 kms away
| from the cost in the North of Spain and temperatures of -4 or
| -5 C are quite common in the winter. Some times we even have
| -10 C. So temperetures bellow zero are definitely common
| here.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| In the north it's completely normal to have sub zero
| temperatures in the winter. My hometown doesn't have a
| particularly high altitude (650m, i.e. not in the mountains)
| and the average low for January is below zero.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Seems pretty unusual. Compared to the UK [1] which is much
| further North.
|
| [1] https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/top-ten-coldest-
| rec...
| cogman10 wrote:
| Interestingly, even the UK doesn't get a lot of snow. That's
| because the gulf stream keeps it relatively warm for it's
| latitude.
|
| One of the major concerns of climate change is that may
| disrupt the gulf stream which would be disastrous for the UK.
| Their ecosystem depends heavily on the fact that water from
| the gulf of mexico keeps them unusually warm.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Not only the UK, but the whole of Northern and Western
| Europe are kind of screwed without the Gulf Stream.
| [deleted]
| alpaca128 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Spain's coldest night for at least 20 years
| u678u wrote:
| The Spanish people definitely dont have Canada quality heating
| or insulation.
|
| Compared to most of the world Canada is pretty much like living
| in the arctic. :) Even Americans dont want to live in the top
| half of the USA any more.
| dieortin wrote:
| I don't think heating quality or insulation is a problem for
| most people in central Spain.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Lot's of Canada doesn't have "Canada quality" insulation,
| including my apartment but also a variety of houses I have
| lived in.
|
| I grew up in the Okanagan, where temps range from -20degC to
| 40degC. Many houses there couldn't deal with either extreme
| well.
|
| Even in Vancouver, -16 would freeze some pipes and kill some
| people. Not as bad as Madrid, but we are more accustomed to
| it here.
| soyyo wrote:
| In Madrid city it may snow one or two times a year, but not all
| years, also most of the time the snow goes away the same day it
| falls. A few years the snow remains in the city for a couple of
| days, but is not that common and is usually seen as a joyful
| event.
|
| But this time, the whole city was completely covered in snow,
| all of it. Cars abandoned in the middle of the street, people
| skying in the main avenues, it was crazy, no one I know has
| ever seen this here so if it has ever happened, it must been at
| least 80 years ago.
| [deleted]
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Spain is kinda prelude to Africa, at least climate-wise. It
| gets cold and snowy in the mountains during winter, but
| something like that is highly unusual in Madrid.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Madrid is generally considered one of the hottest places of
| Europe.
| tpmx wrote:
| In the mountains, at about 3k feet or 1k meters elevation. Yes,
| the headline is quite misleading. _I expect more from the BBC_.
|
| From the article:
|
| > The temperature plunged to -25C (-13F) in Molina de Aragon and
| Teruel, in mountains east of Madrid
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molina_de_Arag%C3%B3n
|
| > Elevation 1,065 m (3,494 ft)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruel
|
| > Elevation 915 m (3,002 ft)
| dan1234 wrote:
| Even in Madrid it got down to -16C (average low for January is
| 2.7C).
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| THIS.
|
| Plus, it is not that unusual. It happened 18 years ago already.
| nend wrote:
| That doesn't seem very misleading. The estimated temperature
| difference for every 1000 meters in additional elevation is
| only 5-6C.
| [deleted]
| cs702 wrote:
| Mentioning elevation without any context or reference to
| historical temperatures is not very helpful. Consider updating
| your comment.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The Wikipedia page for Molina de Aragon, which you linked to,
| says that the average low in January for that locality is
| -3.5C, and that the _record_ low is -28C, which happens to also
| be the record low ever recorded _in the whole of Spain_ (still
| according to the Wikipedia page).
|
| -25C is thus certainly newsworthy and, well, that's in central
| Spain, which is elevated, but "central Spain" does not imply
| that it isn't and Spanish geography is what it is. This is not
| misleading.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, how its written is like it's -25 at massive population
| centers. Intentional vague.
| tomalpha wrote:
| The headline doesn't come across as misleading to me. I
| interpreted it as the temperature having been recorded
| somewhere in central Spain which appears to be accurate
| (granted my Spanish geography isn't great). The tone also
| appears to be consistent with what else is being reported -
| that this is unusual or possibly even extreme weather.
|
| I'm assuming your expectation was different. If so I'd be be
| curious as to how you did interpret it?
| tpmx wrote:
| Knowing the topography of Spain helps.
|
| My interpretation is that the very, very woke BBC staff
| picked what seems like extreme temps from a mountain region
| and then technically correctly wrote that "Central Spain"
| "records temperatures of -25C". That is all.
|
| Do note: I'm not a climate change denier. I just hate crap
| like this, with a passion. I don't think we should have to
| abandon facts in this particular fight.
|
| It seems like a bunch of people here think we should. That's
| very scary and destructive, IMO.
| tomalpha wrote:
| That's really interesting - thank you for replying.
| markdown wrote:
| > technically correctly wrote that "Central Spain" "records
| temperatures of -25C". That is all.
|
| They are technically correct, which is the best kind of
| correct. You're mad that their reporting is factually
| correct?
| tpmx wrote:
| You should go to reddit or something.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| It's the first time in 20 years those elevated areas have
| reached these temps.
|
| The average low is around -3.5c for January.
|
| You might be giving the BBC an overly hard time here. This
| does appear to be a significant (1 in 20 year) deviation.
| [deleted]
| Ma8ee wrote:
| The elevation of Madrid is 667 meters according to Wikipedia.
| So we are not talking about the temperature of an isolated
| mountain top, even if they report the most extreme temperature.
| _Microft wrote:
| Central Spain contains a large plateau at an elevation of
| ~500-1000m above sea level.
|
| Checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meseta_Central , I was
| almost correct. With an area of 200000 km^2 (from german
| Wikipedia) it is even larger than I expected.
| antiman0 wrote:
| A few days ago, someone posted a blog post here on HN [1]
| explaining the phenomenon which causes this: https://www.severe-
| weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-co...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25713704
| guidedlight wrote:
| We are also entering a solar minimum, the last one was linked
| to a "little ice age" in Europe.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
|
| I don't know how climate change will affect this. But we might
| be in for an interesting few years.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| No we just left a minimum, there's been sunspots of opposite
| polarity appearing since early 2019 if memory serves - round
| about that timeframe anyway but the end of the minimum wasn't
| confirmed until earlier in 2020.
|
| It wasn't a Maunder Minimum.
|
| For the next 4 years or so we'll proceed to maximum then back
| down to the next minimum thereafter.
| throwawyeverytm wrote:
| > The Maunder Minimum occurred with a much longer period of
| lower-than-average European temperatures which is likely to
| have been primarily caused by volcanic activity.[citation
| needed]
| Teckla wrote:
| There are literally two citations immediately following
| that sentence in the Wikipedia article.
| guerrilla wrote:
| As I recall, many comments there were very dismissive. I wonder
| if that senrinent will change.
| tgv wrote:
| I don't think the two are related. At least, I haven't heard
| anyone mention it as the cause.
| melenaboija wrote:
| Also last week "Spain records lowest temperature ever at -34C
| (-29F)" [1]. This is in the Pyrenees where is not unusual to
| reach low temperatures, but still freaking cold.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/spain-weather-snow/spain-
| rec...
| m12k wrote:
| It's worth reiterating that the problem is climate change, not
| just global warming. There's more energy in the atmosphere, and
| that can lead to warmer weather (on average this is the case) but
| it also means there's more energy to whip up storms or move
| regions of hot or cold air much further, to places that are not
| used to them. So unusually cold weather can in fact be a result
| of climate change.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Madrid continues to be in utter disarray after this weekend's
| snowstorm, with most streets still covered in ice, many hardly
| penetrable even by foot. Supplies in some downtown supermarkets
| are low, with fresh produce completely out-of-stock.
|
| The fact that snowplows are nowhere to be seen and streets
| continue to be in such a poor state suggests to me that not only
| we are completely ill-equipped for this situation (which is
| normal), but that the situation is overwhelming and the few
| resources we do have are spread thinly across the country.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| This is completely abnormal weather for Madrid. It would be
| objectively stupid for them to have prepared well for arctic
| weather, given the average temperature in January is not even
| below 0 C and they get on average almost no snowfall in an
| average year.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| That's what I meant when I said it's normal that we are ill-
| prepared for this situation.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Just for the sake of comparison, Detroit gets ~33 inches of
| snow a year (~84 cm) and takes a number of days to clear
| out after much of a blizzard. It's not real worth it to
| have an excess of equipment that really only sees a few
| days of use a year (or decade!).
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