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Tue, 28 Mar 2023
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Snowflake

70 people trapped by masses of snow in Austria - up to a meter of snowfall within 24 hours

nnnmm
Heavy snowfall in Austria have cut off 70 people from the outside world and caused traffic chaos, local media reported on Friday.

Due to the tense avalanche situation in the Austrian province of Styria, several roads had to be closed Thursday night, according to daily Kronen Zeitung.

It also said numerous vehicles got stuck on the roadway due to snow. In the meantime, traffic jams of 10 kilometers (six miles) in length occurred.

According to the reports, 80 centimeters (34.5 inches) of fresh snow fell within 24 hours. On Friday morning, several smaller avalanches are said to have already gone off.



Snowflake Cold

Upper Midwest, Northeast bracing for arctic blast bringing sub-zero temps, 'life-threatening' wind chills as new polar vortex system moves in

polar vortex february 2023
© FOX Weather
Wind Chill Warnings and Advisories have been issued for most areas across the Northeast in early February 2023
Wind chill warnings and advisories are active in upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, far north New Jersey and all of New England

New England is preparing for some of the coldest air it's seen in five years as a "dangerous" polar vortex quickly moves into the Upper Midwest and Northeast, bringing sub-zero wind chills and plunging temperatures, FOX Weather reports.

Places like Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa, will be the first to experience the bitter cold Friday morning as morning temperatures are forecast to be in the negative single digits. Other areas in the Midwest, like Northern Minnesota, could even see temps in the negative 20s or 30s.

The highs across the Midwest will struggle to make it out of the single digits Friday afternoon.

Wind chills are expected to be even worse, with feels-like temperatures dropping all the way to negative 50 in some areas. FOX Weather reports frostbite and hypothermia can form on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes in this type of "dangerous cold."

Snowflake

Snow turns Australian Alps into winter wonderland in the middle of summer

Up to 5cm of snow fell at Perisher and Thredbo.
© Valhalla Perisher
Up to 5cm of snow fell at Perisher and Thredbo.
Parts of Victoria and New South Wales have shivered through the morning with snow falling in alpine areas while their northern counterparts in Queensland continue to endure a heatwave.

The overnight wintry blast left a light dusting of snow across the Victorian Alps including at Mount Hotham.

Chamber of Commerce president Steve Belli said while it was an incredible sight, it was not too unusual for snow to fall in February.

"[The weather] is a little bit unpredictable these days. You never know what's going to happen ... but it's Mother Nature, you've just got to work in with it," he said.


Igloo

Achieving net zero in the graveyard of the failed green religion

Global Warming
© Salt Bush Club
According to the clerics of the Green Cult, once we blow up our last coal mine, send all diesel engines to the wreckers, stop using concrete, reinvent sailing clippers, cover the grasslands and hills with solar clutter and wind machines, and then slaughter all of our cattle... global climate will become serene - not too warm, not too cold.

Wild weather will cease, and there will be no more droughts, floods, cyclones, or snowstorms and no more plant and animal extinctions.

But the records written in the rocks tell a far different story about climate changes. Even when nature was in full control, it was not a serene place.

Long before the first steam engine puffed along the first railway, the Earth was periodically battered by natural disasters - earthquakes, tidal waves, pole shifts, magnetic reversals, volcanic eruptions, wild weather, and droughts.

Huge areas were covered by suffocating continents of ice, desert sands, massive flows of mud and lava, beds of salt, and thick coal seams. Thousands of species disappeared including dinosaurs, mammoths, and Australia's megafauna.

Modern humans are not immune to the threat of extinction, but it will not come from today's warm, moist atmosphere or from the gas of life, carbon dioxide.

It will probably come from the next glacial climate cycle of this era, where long bitter glacial eras are separated by short warm periods. These global weather cycles are triggered by changing orbits in the solar system.

Ice Cube

As ice storm continues in the South, parts of the Northeast brace for brutal wind chills not felt in decades

Ice storm texas
As hundreds of thousands remain without power in Texas on Thursday amid frigid temperatures and icy roads, the Northeast is bracing for a blast of bitterly freezing air that forecasters say could be the coldest felt in decades.

Texas has been bearing the brunt of a dangerous ice storm that dumped several rounds of sleet and freezing rain, causing life-threatening road conditions in surrounding states including Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Memphis area in Tennessee.

On Wednesday, Texas reported a third person had died during the storm after losing control of her truck on an icy road north of Eldorado. One person was killed in Austin in a 10-car pileup, and another person died after their car rolled over in the Dallas-area city of Arlington, officials said.

And while Thursday is expected to bring some relief from the deadly storm as temperatures slowly rise, the piling of multiple layers of ice and sleet has snapped tree branches and limbs and led to power outages for nearly 400,000 homes and businesses in Texas as of Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. That means thousands of people likely don't have proper heating or hot water as ice coats the ground.

Arrow Down

Avalanche kills two skiers in Japan's Nagano region

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© Reuters
The bodies of two men caught in an avalanche on Sunday have been found in Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

Extensive searches took place after the incident, which happened on the east slope of Mount Hakuba Norikura.

Japanese authorities have not revealed their identity but confirmed they were from a group of five foreign skiers.

Local police said they believed the men were off-piste skiing separately from the rest of the group when the avalanche took place.

Snowflake Cold

Six dead and more than 250,000 without power as storm hits southern US

A lone driver makes their way through icy road conditions at the LBJ 635 Freeway and North Dallas Tollway interchange on Tuesday.
© Tony Gutierrez/AP
A lone driver makes their way through icy road conditions at the LBJ 635 Freeway and North Dallas Tollway interchange on Tuesday.
Watches and warnings stretch from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi, causing traffic delays and flight cancellations

Dangerous road conditions from bands of sleet and snow were blamed for six deaths as a winter storm snarled traffic across parts of the US, forcing the cancelation of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands without power in several southern states.

Watches and warnings stretched from Texas to Tennessee and Mississippi. Several rounds of mixed precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet, were in store for many areas throughout Wednesday, meaning some regions could be hit multiple times, forecasters said.

"It actually looks like it's going to be getting worse again across Texas, it is already a pretty big area of freezing rain across western and south-western Texas," said Bob Oravec, National Weather Service lead forecaster in Camp Springs, Maryland.

Oravec said the winter weather was expected to move north-east across parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas into western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, before starting to end.


Snowflake

The largest 2-day snowstorm total in recorded history for the Teton Range, Wyoming (41 inches)

50

50" IN 50 HOURS
Yesterday, Owen Leeper & I went up high to greet the sun.

The sun didn't bring much warmth.

NOAA reports showed wind chills of -50ºF and air temps of -18ºF.

The Tetons just received the most snow they've ever recorded in any 2 day period.

41″ in 48-hours
50″ in 50-hours.
52″ storm total.


Comment: Further south in the same state: Storm dumps 7 FEET of snow over weekend at Snowy Range, Wyoming


Snowflake

Heavy snow shuts down border highways in Baja California, Mexico

A lone car navigates a snowy highway near La Rumorosa, Baja California.

A lone car navigates a snowy highway near La Rumorosa, Baja California.
The fifth winter storm of the season has hit northwestern Mexico, causing heavy snow in Baja California that has shut down highways and forced local schools to close.

The Centinela-La Rumorosa highway, the main route along the U.S. border, was temporarily closed in both directions on Tuesday morning, after heavy snowfall that started on Monday night in the town of La Rumorosa in the municipality of Tecate. Local authorities have set up a temporary shelter and are coordinating with the Red Cross to provide assistance to those who need it.

As of shortly before 11 a.m. local time, the state transportation ministry announced that the Centinela-La Rumorosa highway was open in both directions. The La Rumorosa-Tecate free highway was also open in both directions while the La Rumorosa-Tecate tollway remained closed, the ministry said.


Arrow Down

Terrifying moment avalanche hits Himalayan tourist ski resort, killing 2 skiers and burying 21 others under snow in Kashmir, India

Horrifying footage shows a wall of snow roaring down a mountainside and towards the group of skiers, sending them running for safety

Horrifying footage shows a wall of snow roaring down a mountainside and towards the group of skiers, sending them running for safety
This is the terrifying moment an avalanche swept through a Himalayan ski resort in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing two Polish skiers and burying 21 others under piles of snow.

Horrifying footage shows a wall of snow roaring down from the 14,400ft peak of Mount Apharwat and towards the group of skiers, sending them running for safety.

But a total of 21 foreign tourists and their two Kashmiri guides were caught in the massive avalanche and buried under the snow as they were skiing high in the mountains near the tourist resort town of Gulmarg, local police said.

High-altitude rescue teams rushed to the site on snow scooters and retrieved the bodies of the two Polish skiers, police officer Amod Nagpuri said.