Summerlike weather has made an appearance across much of the United States recently, but winter is not done with the high country in Colorado.
Rocky Mountain National Park was coated in heavy snow to start the week, with more than a foot reported in the higher elevations.
"It's May 18 and winter is back in Rocky Mountain National Park," the park posted on Facebook.
Plow crews were sent out, and roads that are usually busy this time of year were shut down because of the wintry weather, including part of U.S. 34. It is unclear when the road will reopen.
Experts call it a "suncave Parry arc." Usually, you have to go to the Arctic to find one. Last week, however, Marcella Giulia Pace saw the rarity in Sicily.
"On May 15th, I was in my garden, surrounded by the quietness of the Sicilian countryside, when, lifting my eyes to the sky, I saw an extraordinary halo display," says Pace. "With my camera in hand, I began running along the country road beside my home, searching for an open field that could reveal the entire composition."
"As I ran, the complex display kept transforming before my eyes," says Pace. "The greatest surprise came when I saw a Parry arc forming above the upper tangent arc--the rarest phenomenon of all!"
Suncave Parry arcs are exceptionally rare because they require sunlight to pass through column-shaped ice crystals suspended in a very specific, improbable, and unstable alignment in the atmosphere. They were first recorded in 1820 by William Edward Parry while icebound off Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic.
"The entire spectacle lasted only twenty minutes," she says. "Then thicker clouds slowly advanced, covering the sun and dissolving one by one all the arcs that had transformed my sky into a mosaic of light and ice."
Swaths of Siberia have slipped back toward winter.
On May 22, frost warnings stretched across a broad belt of Russia, from Omsk and Novosibirsk to Kemerovo, Altai Krai and Orenburg. Overnight lows were expected to fall to -5C (23F), cold enough to threaten early crops, gardens and spring vegetation.
In Kemerovo Oblast, the cold has been biting for days. Local stations fell to around -4C (24.8F), with daytime temperatures stuck near 4C (39.2F). Snow fell in Kemerovo. Roads in Kuzbass were covered. Visibility deteriorated.
The cold also spread into the mountains and republics farther east.
Tuva faced wet snow, thunderstorms, hail and damaging winds. Buryatia was hit by mountain wet snow and a temperature drop of at least 10C. Around Irkutsk and Lake Baikal, snow remained in the higher terrain, with more frosts expected through to May 25, at least.
Heating systems have been turned back on in Siberian communities, according to local reports.
The earth was covered in a blanket of white snow, with distant mountains blanketed in pristine white, creating a unique and beautiful scene of "snow in May."
Abnormal weather in China, with blizzards in May!
A sudden and severe blizzard hit Hami, Xinjiang, with snowfall accumulating by 35 millimeters overnight!
A red blizzard warning was issued for Zheduo Mountain in Sichuan, paralyzing the entire highway to Tibet and leaving countless people stranded!
Morocco has experienced an unusual spell of wintry weather in mid-May, with thunderstorms and snowfall striking several mountainous regions at a time when temperatures typically begin shifting toward summer conditions.
Houcine Youabed, communications officer at Morocco's General Directorate of Meteorology, said the unstable weather pattern was caused by a low-pressure system accompanied by a cold upper-air mass positioned over the western Mediterranean and northern Morocco.
The atmospheric conditions triggered a noticeable drop in temperatures, particularly in the High and Middle Atlas mountain ranges, leading to snowfall at elevations above 2,000 meters.
According to the meteorological agency, the cold air interacting with humid Atlantic currents created active storm clouds that produced localized thunderstorms and snow.
Patrick Thorne Inthesnow.com Fri, 15 May 2026 11:29 UTC
High altitude ski slopes in the Alps have reported up to 59cm of snowfall over the past few days. Snow has also been falling to low elevations as temperatures plummet.
Only seven glacier ski areas are still open for snow sports with several of those closing their 25-26 seasons this Sunday.
The biggest accumulation has been reported on the Stubai Glacier near Innsbruck (pictured above this morning), one of those closing this weekend. It has reported nearly two feet of snowfall in the past 72 hours taking its upper base to 3.2m, the second deepest in the Alps.
Five of the seven still-open ski areas in the Alps are in Austria, with Hintertux, open until July and with the most terrain still open (42km of slopes), posting 30cm. The Kaunertal Glacier, also closing at the end of this weekend, reports 20cm. The Mölltal Glacier got just 5cm and the Kitzsteinhorn is the fifth Austrian option.
Les 2 Alpes, the only ski area open in France, reported 15cm (6"). It has Europe's deepest base at 3.4m following a 60cm fall earlier this month. The year-round cross-border Zermatt-Cervinia Matterhorn Glacier Paradise ski area is also open.
Snowfall was initially reported down as low as high altitude ski villages like Livigno, Obertauern and Val d'Isere but in the past 24 hours has been falling still lower to valley floors.
Spring may have sprung in the lowlands - mostly - but winter is still clinging hard to the Highlands.
Visitors to Aviemore Mountain Resort could be forgiven for thinking it was deep in December, rather than the middle of May, after 40cm of snow fell overnight.
The thick snowfall comes as cold northerly winds from the Arctic continue to drive weather patterns in Scotland, with the Met Office reporting temperatures below average for this time of year.
However, the lack of warmer weather elsewhere has been a boon for the resort, with winter sports lasting beyond their usual cut-off date in April.
Located in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, the resort offers a wide range of activities for visitors.
Keraunos puts the cold pool at 500 hPa at -32C (-26F) over western and central Europe on May 14.
For May, that ranks as the fourth-coldest such setup in 30 years of record-keeping. The benchmark remains May 2012, with ERA5 reanalysis coming up with -33C (-27F).
A deep upper-level trough is locked over the continent, with blocking over the North Atlantic allowing polar air to drive far south. That cold air aloft is steepening lapse rates, destabilizing the atmosphere, and turning mild spring air at the surface into showers, hail, thunder, mountain snow and frost risk.
The cold is already showing up.
In Croatia, Puntijarka on Zagreb's Medvednica has recorded May snow for only the sixth time since observations began in 1981.
The ice saints live up to their name this week. Rain, dense clouds and strong winds dominate at the start of the week. On Tuesday night, the snow line even dropped to medium altitudes.
For example, in Walenstadtberg, a village in the St. Gallen municipality of Walenstadt, snow fell from the sky early on Tuesday morning, as the video of a blue News reader reporter shows. Walenstadtberg lies at an altitude of around 800 meters above sea level.
It also snowed in Fischenthal ZH:
It will remain cool in the coming days: According to MeteoNews, the night to Wednesday will be partly cloudy to clear in many places. This will allow the air to cool down unhindered, which is why temperatures will drop significantly in the early hours of the morning.
Severe storms swept across parts of northern Croatia on Tuesday, causing widespread disruption, damaging infrastructure and bringing unusual May snowfall to higher elevations.
Emergency services were called into action across Zagreb and Zagreb County after strong thunderstorms, heavy rain and hail hit the region.
According to Croatia's Civil Protection Directorate, the County Emergency Centre 112 received around 250 calls from residents reporting various weather-related incidents.
In Zagreb, one person was reported injured during the storm.
The severe weather also disrupted public transport in the capital. Due to damage to the overhead power network, several tram lines were forced to operate on altered and shortened routes.
