Sources
Extreme Temperatures
Sources
© Amjad Ghsoun
Heavy snowfall created traffic problems in areas of the Kingdom on Wednesday night.
Heavy snowfall created traffic problems in areas of the Kingdom on Wednesday night.
Sources
© AFP
An aerial view shows an informal tent settlement housing Syrian refugees in the area of Delhamiyeh, in the central Bekaa Valley.
An aerial view shows an informal tent settlement housing Syrian refugees in the area of Delhamiyeh, in the central Bekaa Valley.
Storm Miriam - also referred to by some Lebanese officials as Storm Tracy - is the second to hit the Eastern Mediterranean country this month after Norma, which struck on January 6.
One person was killed and 10 injured on Tuesday in a vehicle collision caused by poor visibility, the Daily Star said.
The first storm had a devastating effect on more than 20,000 refugees living in tents in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and areas in the country's north, displacing many whose shelters were either flooded or destroyed by snow.
Credit: Barbara Reiter via Storyful
Comment: Elsewhere across Europe in the Balkans the following image has emerged on social media from Bosnia and Herzegovina depicting the extraordinary depth of the snow for some parts of that region:
Stunning snow impression on Prokoško lake (BiH) today, Jan 17th - thanks to Jasmin Begovic for the report! pic.twitter.com/D842kxHNz1
— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) January 17, 2019
While from Poland during the past week the following images were posted:
*DEEP* snow at higher elevations in the Karkonosze National Park today, January 17! Report: @Karkonoski_PN pic.twitter.com/0YFsB1fUTN
— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) January 17, 2019
Big snow at Chata Wuja Toma, Silesian Beskids, Poland on January 15. Report: Kataklizmy w Polsce i na świecie pic.twitter.com/X7RM1iIsjn
— severe-weather.EU (@severeweatherEU) January 17, 2019
Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows
A wave of steady storms this week, capped off Wednesday night by a powerful atmospheric river event that caused the National Weather Service to issue a rare blizzard warning, brought more than four feet of snow to some Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts.
The huge snowfall boosted the statewide Sierra snowpack to 103 percent of normal on Thursday, up from just 69 percent on Jan. 1.
It also comes ahead of one of the biggest California ski weekends of the year, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday weekend.
© Amjad Ghsoun
Heavy snowfall created traffic problems in areas of the Kingdom on Wednesday night.
Heavy snowfall created traffic problems in areas of the Kingdom on Wednesday night.
Snow started falling over the mountainous areas of the northern region on Wednesday afternoon, and by evening, the central parts, including the capital, also received heavy snow that quickly blocked streets in areas located 900 metres above sea level.
By Thursday noon, all of the country's roads were open to traffic, according to the Public Security Department.
Ras Munif in Ajloun Governorate, 76 kilometres northwest of Amman, recorded the highest snow accumulation at 15cm, according to Raed Rafid Al Khattab, head of the weather forecast section at the Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD).
Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings are in effect for those areas expected to receive 80-100" of snow from the time the snow started yesterday through Thursday evening. That's more than 8 feet of snow in just a days of days. To put that in perspective, that is more snow than Roanoke has seen in 5 years.
© AFP/Getty Images
New paper argues for a stronger influence of Arctic sea-ice loss on recent Eurasian cooling, thus causing colder winters and more snow in Europe due to climate change.
A reconciled estimate of the influence of Arctic sea-ice loss on recent Eurasian cooling
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0379-3 (paywalled)
Abstract
Northern midlatitudes, over central Eurasia in particular, have experienced frequent severe winters in recent decades1,2,3. A remote influence of Arctic sea-ice loss has been suggested4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14; however, the importance of this connection remains controversial because of discrepancies among modelling and between modelling and observational studies15,16,17.
Here, using a hybrid analysis of observations and multi-model large ensembles from seven atmospheric general circulation models, we examine the cause of these differences. While all models capture the observed structure of the forced surface temperature response to sea-ice loss in the Barents-Kara Seas-including Eurasian cooling-we show that its magnitude is systematically underestimated. Owing to the varying degrees of this underestimation of sea-ice-forced signal, the signal-to-noise ratio differs markedly.
Loser, Austria
The Swiss resort of Andermatt-Sedrun (pictured below) has reported this depth on its upper ski runs with 95cm at resort level. Road access to the village was cut off earlier this week although a rail tunnel allowed people to still get in and out.
Andermatt-Sedrun, Switzerland
© Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times
A’joure Johnson, 6, of Seattle takes a leap while visiting Me-Kwa-Mooks Park in West Seattle recently.
A’joure Johnson, 6, of Seattle takes a leap while visiting Me-Kwa-Mooks Park in West Seattle recently.
"The average high temperature at Sea-Tac (International Airport) for the first 16 days of January was 51.8°," the weather service tweeted Thursday.
Those temperature records go back to marks taken at the Federal Building in downtown Seattle since the 1890s, meteorologist Dana Felton said.
A high of 50 degrees is expected on Thursday, Felton said.
There were, however, a few cold mornings: Lows dipped to 33 degrees on Jan. 1, 32 degrees on Jan. 2 and 31 degrees on Jan. 15, he said.
The warmest day so far was last Friday, Jan. 11, when the high climbed to 61, Felton said.
"A 60-degree day is pretty rare in January," he said. "There have only been 16 in the 75 years of records at Sea-Tac."
Comment: Details of the earlier storm referred to above: Storm packing snow and rain paralyzes parts of Lebanon