Gee, want a nice Mediterranean beach getaway in Spain? Pack your snow gear…
https://dailyworld.in/barcelona-people-walk-on-a-snow-covered-beach-in-barcelona-spain/
Hit the link to see the photos.
Barcelona : People walk on a snow covered beach in Barcelona, Spain…
Breaking Photo February 9, 2018 Daily WorldBarcelona : People walk on a snow covered beach in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018. Northern Spain has suffered extreme low temperatures with heavy snowfall during the week. /AP-PTI
Sure seems like a lot of exceptional snow and snow records being set, along with lots of “coldest in 30 years”…
Son just informed me Chicago is snowing.
If you are under a dip of the Jet Stream from the Arctic, it’s cold and snowy.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Cool!!! Seriously.
EM, it is not just the NH suffering with cold, it is also the SH as well, noth Australia & New Zealand have had very cold periods as well.
I wait for the end-of-month UAH global temp like I used to wait for the end-of-day DOW index. :)
We are having an unusually dry winter so far, something like the 4th least snow on record.
Currently 10 deg F and snowing lightly.
January is normally one of our driest months of the year so not too worried about it unless the dry spell extends into the spring months when we normally get our precipitation. The time span from Jan 20 to about Feb 20 is the historically coldest period of the year here in the Denver Metro area and by historical standards +10 Deg F, is not that cold ( I have seen -20 to – 30 Deg F during this period in my life time )
All that said I have also noticed a trend toward cooler than seasonal weather over the last couple seasons, not so much in the absolute cold, but atypical cold in the spring and fall, and very few blistering hot days in continuous stretches in the summer. It is a subtle shift but noticeable for some one who watches the weather and lived here for almost 70 years.
@A.C.Osborn:
Yes. A bit harder to notice in the south as there is less land “way south” so less extreme manifestations, yet it is there.
My expectation is that higher altitudes will show it much more (‘shorter’ atmospheric height) and will more poleward latitudes. I suspect the Data Diddlers know this too which is why they left in high cold places in the ’50s to ’70s ‘baseline’ and then took them out during the warming. Now they have locked in a colder average base, and prevented it from ever returning. I did some postings on the Andes and such loss of high cold places a few years back.
I probably ought to find some high altitude thermometers in the S.American datasets and show them cycling… (But frankly, since it became clear that Global Warming was only a Political Game and not at all interested in science or facts; spending hours to demonstrate they have things wrong on the technical front again and still with no effect; has become less interesting to me.)
@Jim2:
Got a link to your favorite temps site?
@Larry:
Yes, on the western side of the “mobile arctic high” where the warmer air is moving up toward the pole (to dump heat massively to space…) we are a lot drier and somewhat warmer. On the side where the polar cold plunges south, they get frozen and soggy.
But at least this explains why the Ice Age Glaciers were to thick over New York and Wisconsin and essentially missing out west. This configuration of the jet stream (likely shaped by the Rockies) is persistent during this kind of solar configuration.
Yes even as a teenager I wondered why the glaciers extended so far south in the great lakes and east areas, and were largely absent here at high altitude. Terminal Morains for the glaciers in the Rockies never extended out onto the plains or even into the foot hills in the 9000 ft and below areas. That was a puzzle until I realized that glaciation is strongly influenced by total precipitation as well as cold. You can’t make a glacier until you get year round snow packs in sheltered areas, and to do that you need snow depths like you see in Buffalo New York and in the Sierra mountains like around Truckee Ca.
It probably got brutally cold here but we never had the snow pack to support full on flat land glaciers like developed up in the Dakotas and farther east.
The spine of the Rockies north south orientation encourages strong cold outflows in the areas east of the rockies but down slope westerlies burn off lots of snow very quickly near the mountains. A couple hundred miles east that warming influence of the down slope westerlies is completely missing. Heck even 60 mile east of the front range near Denver you can see much colder temps on the plains than typically happens here in the Denver Basin.
The only time we get really heavy snows is when a deep low sets up just north of the Oklahoma panhandle near Springfield Colorado, then that circulation pumps gulf moisture up slope into the Colorado springs or Denver basins and dumps deep snows. Otherwise our annual snow fall is only in the 55 inch range, but when conditions are right we can get 30-45 inches in a single storm period.
[http://blogs.denverpost.com/library/2013/11/26/biggest-blizzard-buried-denver-colorado-100-years-ago-in-1913/9400/]
Annual 55″ snow. Here I get 1cm if that. Central southern England, UK.
Fav temp site for UAH: http://www.drroyspencer.com
Otherwise, I like wood for trees. Lot’s of easy to chart info in one place.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot
Some report this winter period I find interesting are —
January 8th
Algeria: More than 15 inches (40cm) blanketed sand dunes across the small town of Ain Sefra, Algeria. See https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/901733/Sahara-Desert-snow-Ain-Sefra-Algeria-pictures-photos
Morocco: Heavy snowfall closes 37 roads. Mountainous areas in the High and Middle Atlas, especially the route connecting Marrakech to Ouarzazate See http://article19.ma/accueil/archives/85663
January 30th
Morocco: First snow in 50 years paralyzes southern Morocco. After January 20, 2018, when 3,100 miles (5,000 km) of roads were closed due to ‘exceptional’ snowfall. Now, just 9 days after that exceptional snowfall, the first snow in 50 years to hit southern Morocco has again blocked roads, making travel “absolutely impossible.” From 6 am Jan 28 to 6 am Jan 29, Amzri received 22 to 30 cm (almost one foot!) of snow and Imdrasse received 10 to 20 cm (3.93 – 7.87 inches).
The snowfall is currently affecting Ouarzazate (gateway to the Sahara Desert), Taroudant and even Zagora, which hasn’t experienced snowfall since 1968. See https://youtu.be/O3HQi5hxd2I and https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/01/239497/zagoura-ouarzazate-taroudant-snow/
February 3rd to 7th
Morocco: February 3, 2018, significant snowfall has hit several regions of Morocco, for the first time ever for some. From February 6 to 7, up to 282 cm of snow was recorded by the National Meteorological Directorate on Jbal Habri (Ifrane) and 272 cm at Michlifen Station. The snow caused major disruptions in transportation. Some 38 roads were still cut due to the snow at 23:00 on Tuesday, February 6. In the city of Ifrane, the snow reached 173 cm (5 ft-8 inches) deep. Khenifra, snow depths of 170 cm were recorded in Moulay Yaâcoub and 190 cm in Ouiwane. In Beni-Mellal, 85 cm were recorded at Aghbala. See https://www.medias24.com/MAROC/Quoi-de-neuf/180281-Jusqu-a-280-cm-de-neige-au-Moyen-Atlas.html
Now I know it’s not unusual to have snow in the Atlas mountains it just that this season there appears to be more than usual.
Also rather unusual is —
November 15th
“Very unusual” November snow in South Africa see https://m.traveller24.com/News/WeatherUpdate/pics-cold-snap-brings-sa-snow-in-november-20171115
November 21st
Rare summer snow in South Africa see https://www.iceagenow.info/rare-summer-snow-south-africa/#more-23584
EM,
Here in NZ this Summer has been a little odd, but not unusual. The country sits in the Temperate zone, and that translates as Northern parts of the country enjoying a subtropical climate and the far South tends to see the thermometers swing a bit more to each end of the scale. Those of us who have a few years under our belts know that any South Island Summer can see huge lamb losses due to unseasonable cold and snow. Right now, the rain is hammering down here in the Bay of Plenty after weeks of extremely (for here) hot weather.
Heat causes snow. All the AGW fans tell us so.
@Alexander K:
I just loved my time in New Zealand. Were it not a 14 hour flight (I had something like 18 hours elapsed IIRC due to a stop in Hawaii for more gas) and a bucket of money to get there, I’d visit often. Drove all around the North Island. The weather was great too. But I never made it to the South Island. I’d like to experience a winter in your Alps and skiing some day….
@Phil:
Yes, it’s that new Hot Snow… See, the CO2 causes more heat that causes more evaporation that causes more hot snow that then has even more evaporation making the snow colder but putting on the heat into the air where all that added humidity condenses on the thermometers making them read higher… or something… /sarc;