Grand froid en Europe centrale
© Euronews
When alarmist climate institutes roll out papers claiming global warming is going to cause severely cold winters, then you have to wonder if they know something is up and are acting preemptively to salvage their crumbling climate science, which not long ago predicted with high confidence balmy snowless winters.

A few reports have already come out indicating this winter could be a real doozy - at least for wide parts of North America. But now we are starting to see such reports popping up for Europe as well.

"Damned cold winter"

Now the Swiss online news site Blick here has an article warning of a "damned cold" winter. Blick begins:
Meteorologists and weather enthusiasts agree: This winter is going to be damned cold. Responsible for this is the early snow in Siberia."
Blick describes how much of Siberia is already covered with snow, in some places by "up to a half meter", and it's only October. This claim is based on the latest NOAA snow cover data. The ECMWF also shows:
2014 Europe snowcover
© sunriseswansong.wordpress.comProjected snow cover by the ECMWF. Much of Russia will be already covered by snow, providing the ideal breeding grounds for a powerful midwinter Siberian high.
Early Siberian snow - already snow covered!

But what does that have to do with the winter weather in Europe? Blick explains:
The earlier that snow is on the ground in Siberia, the stronger a Siberian high develops. This blows icy winds also to us in Switzerland."
Looks like Europeans will have to get used to Russia exporting bitter cold instead of gas. If things develop so, then things could get nastilly interesting for Europe and its winter energy needs. Not to worry though. The old continent has much green energy capacity, which will especially help out (in the springtime when the sun is high enough to power solar panels).

"Warmest year on record" sees early Siberian snow, forecasts of severe winter?

This cold winter development seems to fly in the face of one particular dataset, which claimed 2014 was on track to be "the hottest on record". Swiss Radio here also reports on how Siberian snow can impact Europe's winters:
The story is simple: the earlier snow covers the ground in Siberia, the colder it gets there at the start of winter. And the colder it gets in Siberia at the start of winter, the stronger and more powerful the Siberian high becomes in mid winter. And when the Siberian high is strong, then we get invasions of cold air masses. The winter will be cold."
SRF adds that "one has to go back a few years" to find so much snow in Siberia this early. The SRF even links to a paper on the subject.

Massive Siberian snow also bodes ill for North American winter

weathersavior.com writes here as well:
The rapid increase of snow cover across Siberia in October usually leads to a potentially colder winter in the US due to a negative Arctic Oscillation. A negative AO will allow Arctic air to infiltrate the U.S and is one of the driving factors for snow lovers in the Northeastern U.S."
Meanwhile, sunriseswansong.wordpress.com writes that the early Siberian snows are what is needed for "breeding bitter cold" and that Joe Bastardi says the current Northern Hemisphere snow cover for this time of year is the 3rd highest!

Finally Kirk Mellish writes that the "Eurasia snowfall is off to a record fast start, which is historically a harbinger of cold winters as shown by research by Dr. Cohen of MIT. It does not guarantee it, but makes it more likely."

No one can know how the winter will really pan out, and other outcomes just can't be ruled out. But one thing is sure: the present. And it is showing that the northern hemisphere winter is off to a really nasty start.

Also read kasimsweatherwatcher.com/uk-winter-2014-15/.