It’s winter somewhere
February 4th, 2012 at 7:09 pm by Tara Hastings under Weather
I know we really haven’t experienced lots of cold or snow here in Ohio but old man winter has made his presence known around the globe.
First let’s head north and talk about Alaska. Here’s a look at the temperatures as of 6pm eastern time.
If that doesn’t seem too cold to you keep reading. Many areas along the western coast have had the coldest or pretty close to the top months on record. Nome, Alaska set a record for the coldest January. The average temperature last month was -16.6° (yes that’s a minus before the 16) breaking the old record of -15.2° set in 1989. Take a look at low how the mercury dropped in some Alaskan cities.
I think they should change the name of Circle Hot Springs – clearly it is no where near “HOT” there. Can you imagine the heating bill up there? Keep in mind parts of Alaska are only getting about 5-6 hours of daylight.
Ok now onto Europe. Nearly 200 people have died from the bitterly cold temperatures. (I’ve seen numerous reports of different numbers but basically this arctic blast has taken many lives.)
It was -36° in parts of the Czech Republic and Poland this morning. In Rome, ancient monuments were covered with six inches of snow. This is the first time in 27 years that much snow has fallen. Speaking of snow – Northern Africa woke up to a layer of white on the ground.
The reason behind the cold snap is a sharp dip in the jet stream.
It looks like this pattern is going to continue at least for the next week. So while we may be missing out on winter it’s showing up in other places around the globe.
