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May snowfall in Luxembourg


RTL Today
Sat, 04 May 2019 17:40 UTC
snow
© RTL Mobile Reporter / Patricia Wennmacher
As predicted, some places did indeed see snow on Friday night/Saturday morning.

We already have our first snow photo, sent to us from Lieler.

Gritting vehicles have already preparing the motorways since early on Saturday morning.

Many people have already changed over their tyres from winter to summer ones, so be careful if you're travelling by car: especially around Oeslinger hills.


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Snowflake

Springtime snow covers Belgium


Sky News
Sat, 04 May 2019 19:43 UTC
snow Belgium
It is a chilly bank holiday weekend in Belgium, with unseasonable snow coating part of the country.

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Snowflake

What's happened to summer? Asking for Sweden


The Local (Sweden)
Mon, 06 May 2019 11:20 UTC
May 4, Sweden (Hällefors)
© Carolyn Pihl
May 4, Sweden (Hällefors)
From the sunniest April since records began to chilly temperatures and snow. What happened to summer and when will it return?

Southern Sweden is usually basking in temperatures of around 15C this time of the year, according to national weather agency SMHI. But this week the mercury seems to refuse to edge above 5-10C.

"The meteorological summer has stopped," said SMHI meteorologist Jon Jörpeland, referring to Sweden's definition of summer, an average temperature of above 10C on five consecutive days.

Some parts of southern Sweden even saw snow fall and stick on the ground last week, which is rare in May.

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Attention

Unusual orange algae bloom and mass fish die off at Kent coast, UK

Sean Doherty
Kent Online
Sat, 04 May 2019 09:18 UTC
Orange algae kent

Orange algae bloom, Kent
The Environment Agency has confirmed what caused an orange substance to appear in the sea around Thanet and Whitstable.

The substance, which has started to stain the groynes at Eastcliff, was reported to Port Control, after being discovered earlier this week.

On Thursday (May 2), dozens of fish washed up on the shore, though this was not stated to be linked to the substance, and the council has recommended keeping dogs on leads and away from going near the water.

Comment: A mass fish die off followed by a 'naturally occurring algae'. Although one would expect that if this was normal for the region it wouldn't be such a surprise to the newspapers nor the port authority. It's worth noting that just 2 days later there was an unusual M2.5 earthquake that occurred further inland in Surrey, in an area of fracking exploration.

See also:

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Snowflake

Record May snowfall in some parts of Switzerland


Swissinfo.ch
Sun, 05 May 2019 19:10 UTC
snow
Areas of Switzerland saw record snowfall for the month of May overnight from Saturday into Sunday. Most snow fell in the central and eastern alpine regions, but the most dramatic records were observed in lower-lying Bern and St Gallen.

The Swiss capital of Bern woke up to four centimetres of fresh snow on Sunday morning. The previous record for the month was one centimetre in 1945.

The eastern city of St Gallen saw 19 centimetres of snow, up from the 12 centimetres recorded on May 7, 1957, according to the Swiss meteorological service MeteoSwiss.

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Snowflake

Winter returns to France, with snow and ice on the Côte d'Azur

Nicholas Wells
Euronews
Sun, 05 May 2019 18:36 UTC
snow
Parts of the French Riviera resembled a ski resort at the weekend as a cold front brought ice and snow to the Côte D'Azur.

After basking in sun over Easter, toboggans and road gritters were seen on the streets of Antibes.

The story was the same across much of France, with snow and wind gusts up to 130 km/h in the Rhône Valley.

The French weather service issued a warning for dangerous driving conditions.

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Cloud Precipitation

Historic Mississippi River flooding could extend into June, experts warn

Elizabeth Weise
USA Today
Sat, 04 May 2019 12:34 UTC
flood
Flooding along the Mississippi river could persist through the end of the month and even into June as relentless rains continue to saturate the Midwest, forecasters say.

"We have points in Iowa and Illinois that have been in flood stage for over 30 days, which hasn't occurred since we started keeping records — and some of them go back 150 years," said Patrick Burke a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

At least four people have died in the flooding, which has closed hundreds of roads, stopped vessel traffic along parts of the Mississippi River and inundated multiple towns, including major flooding in Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois.


Comment: Trouble could be brewing for farmers in the US Corn Belt because of continuing wet weather

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Bug

Huge swarm of locusts sweeps through Saudi Arabia

Liz Perkins
Daily Mail
Wed, 01 May 2019 20:09 UTC
Saudi Arabia locust swarms

Skies start to darken: Swarms of the biblical bugs have arrived due to unusual heavy rain
Saudi Arabia is being plagued by a huge outbreak of locusts which is sweeping the country.

Darkened skies and layers upon layers of the insects were discovered on trees as masses of the bugs arrived along the Red Sea and invaded the country from Sudan and Eritrea.

Egypt has also been struck by large numbers of locusts, with 80 million in a swarm there could be devastating consequences for food supplies.

Experts have warned crops will be put at risk from the legions of bugs flooding Najran at the weekend.

Unusually heavy rainfall in the region led to the deluge of biblical bugs arriving in the country in mid-January with even more coming in a week later.


Comment: Last month Iran faced the worst locust attack in 40 years.

Meanwhile successive waves of extreme weather have hit the Middle East & North Africa regions recently. See also: Flash-flooding, dust-storms, hailstorms, and even snow: Entire Mid-East & North Africa regions pummeled all month long with extreme weather

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Seismograph

"Unprecedented": M2.5 quake hits Surrey, UK - 20 in less than a year since fracking began

Colin Drury
Independent
Sat, 04 May 2019 01:19 UTC
surrey quake may 2019
© British Geological Survey/PA Wire
Buildings shook after the latest in a series of earthquakes struck Surrey in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Residents described fearing there had been an "explosion" after the 2.5 magnitude shaker hit at 1.19am.

It follows at least 20 similar quakes in the county in little more than a year - with many residents saying they fear the new seismic activity may be linked to oil and gas exploration being conducted at Horse Hill near Gatwick airport.

A spokeswoman for the British Geological Survey said: "Around 100 reports from members of the public in the epicentral area have been received so far and many others have taken to social media to report their experience. Typical reports described 'windows and doors shook', 'felt like some sort of explosion' and 'a loud bang woke me up'."

Comment: While the UK government couldn't care less about the destruction wrought by fracking, thankfully business has made the decision for them and fracking appears to be on the out. Although, that's not to say that the quake risk is over: Geologists discover London sitting on two serious fault lines, capital at risk of dangerous earthquake

See also:

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Cloud Precipitation

Trouble could be brewing for farmers in the US Corn Belt because of continuing wet weather

John Roach
AccuWeather
Fri, 03 May 2019 18:45 UTC
wet corn
Corn planting is behind schedule in the United States because of the weather in four of the top six states for corn production -- and that situation is not expected to improve when the latest Crop Progress report is issued Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), according to an AccuWeather analysis.

Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and South Dakota are the four states significantly behind schedule and expected to remain that way, according to AccuWeather meteorologists who have been analyzing the data. Those four states combined produce nearly 40% of the corn in the U.S. If the weather continues a wet pattern through late May, consumer prices could go up this summer.

Iowa and Nebraska, the other two states among the top six corn producers, are only slightly behind, according to data from the USDA.

"The question will be how much farther it will fall behind the pace," said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls. "It's about a week behind schedule right now. If it were to go to a week and a half or two weeks, that's big news."
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