© Maxim Shipenkov/EPACold air has been pushing southwards across Eastern Europe and much of northern Asia in recent days
It has been an early and quite vicious start to the winter in parts of Eastern Europe. From the Baltic Sea states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in the west; to Russia's Siberia in the east; and the Caucuses in the south; the end of October and early November have seen marked changes in weather patterns.
Cold air has been pushing southwards across Eastern Europe and much of northern Asia in recent days. Many climatologists believe this is a sign that changes in the polar vortex are likely to lead to a cold winter ahead.
The polar vortex is an area of low pressure, high up in the atmosphere. It is at its most intense during the winter months. There have been signs in recent years that it is beginning to weaken, and predictions for the coming winter suggest it will weaken significantly.
This weakening is likely to be the result of climate change, being linked to the decrease of Arctic sea ice in recent years.
When this happens, this mass of air buckles and folds. It can make inroads into normally temperate areas of the northern hemisphere.
In the last few weeks, there has been significant cold weather and snow across much of Russia, certainly more than we would normally expect at this time of the year.
For example, Perm in central European Russia can expect temperatures to vary between freezing and minis 5C during early November. Instead, temperatures are between minus 5C and minus 15C. Temperatures have been below freezing since 26 October.
This situation has been made worse in the last few days by the development of a deep area of low pressure which has moved in from the North Atlantic and brought wet, stormy weather to southern Scandinavia and the Baltic States.
As this system ran into the really cold air further east, it turned readily to snow. Significant accumulations of 20cm or more have been reported in Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia.
More than half a metre of snow is expected in some areas in the coming days.
Moscow is expected to see cold weather continuing for the foreseeable future, with temperatures at or below freezing, and perhaps another 20cm of snow by the end of the weekend.
Source: Al Jazeera and Agencies
For many generations observation of nature formed the basis of learning. We now pooh pooh ancient wisdom that is based on this ancient form of empirical observation because early 'scientists' did not follow modern scientific processes and consequently their discoveries are often disregarded.
If we credit the ancients with knowledge and wisdom we might perceive, as they did, that nature follows a pattern. Like a computer program, when parameters are exceeded the pattern adjusts to bring the pattern back into alignment. If these parameters are in place to maintain life (as I believe them to be) then when humanity pushes the limits to excess 'alarm bells' ring and emergency action is taken to restore equanimity.
An analogy of this scenario is when a stock market trader sets up a trading range in advance that s/he feels comfortable with (where to take profit or limit loss). When the stock hits the extreme loss limit an alarm goes off so that the trader can take emergency action to protect his/her loss.