Big freeze causes deaths, transport chaos in Europe

[redrumloa]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... yiAeAeQodA

The death toll from winter storms across Europe rose to at least 80 on Monday as transport chaos spread amid mounting anger over the failure of Eurostar high-speed trains.

With tens of thousands stranded by the cancellation of London-to-Paris trains and hundreds of flights across the continent, new accidents and mass power cuts added to the big freeze tumult.

A car veered off an icy road knocking concrete onto rails that derailed a Paris commuter train, injuring 36 people, police said. Three hundred people had to be evacuated from the train.

Another train in the Croatian capital Zagreb hit a buffer injuring 52 people.

Croatian investigators blamed the minus 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) temperatures for a brake failure, national television reported. European temperatures as low as minus 33.6 degrees Celsius (minus 28.5 Fahrenheit) have been recorded in Bavaria.

In Poland, authorities said 42 people, many of them homeless, had died of cold over three days after temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit).

Ukraine reported 27 deaths while six people were killed in accidents in Germany and three in Austria.

France has reported at least two deaths of homeless, and the national power company cut electricity to two million people on Monday saying it was needed to avoid an even bigger blackout amid surging demand.

More flights were cancelled in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain and main highways were blocked across Europe where some regions had more than 50 centimetres (20 inches) of snow.

The breakdown of the Eurostar service under the Channel, linking London with Paris and Brussels, has symbolised Europe's suffering.

After the nightmare of more than 2,000 people stuck in the tunnel when five trains broke down Friday, tens of thousands more people have missed trains cancelled since then. Related article: Eurostar passengers vent fury.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy summoned the head of the state SNCF rail company, Guillaume Pepy, to demand speedy action. SNCF is a part-owner of Eurostar and responsible for the running of Eurostar trains on French soil.

Within an hour, Eurostar announced that its trains may roll again Tuesday if test runs "go well", but that normal service would not resume before Christmas Day.

The French transport ministry has ordered an investigation into the breakdown, which Eurostar said has been caused by trains unable to handle the change from freezing temperatures outside to warm temperatures in the tunnel.

Eurostar said it had launched its own independent review.

The winter storms caused other disruption across Europe.

Air traffic was again badly hit as temperatures remained glacial: minus 20 degrees Celsius in Sibiu in Romania, where more than 50 centimetres of snow fell, and minus seven Celsius in Venice, Italy.

Seven hundred people spent the night on camp beds at Amsterdam-Schipol airport and more flights were cancelled after dozens were grounded Sunday.

The Dutch rail network was also badly hit with the railway company advising commuters to stay at home.

Heavy snowfall led to more delays and cancellations at Frankfurt and Duesseldorf airports in Germany, where more than 500 flights were cancelled or redirected on Sunday.

Twenty percent of flights out of Paris-Charles de Gaulle were cancelled Monday. The main RER commuter train line running east to west across the Paris region has been out of action for 12 days because of a strike.

Spanish civil aviation authorities said 174 flights from Madrid-Barajas airport were called off. Flights from Lisbon to Madrid were among those hit while main roads in northern Portugal were cut by snow.

Brussels airport also reported cancellations and delays.

After more snow falls on Moscow, authorities sent out 13,000 dump trucks to clear the streets, authorities said as chronic traffic jams built up.

In Britain, more airport delays hit passengers while snow forced the postponement of Wigan's English Premier League football match against Bolton Wanderers.

 

[redrumloa]

Oh, I missed this! This cold can be attributed to the "Gore Effect".

Gore Effect Impacts Copenhagen Climate

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php ... n-climate-

Over four inches of snow fell in Copenhagen last night as temperatures dipped to below 25°F, not including wind chill. Officials with Denmark's Meteorological Institute said there is a high probability of a white Christmas in Denmark, which has occurred only seven times in the last 100 years. This is what is known as "The Gore Effect," a strange phenomenon involving extreme or unusual cold and blizzards that seems to follow Al Gore and his global-warming crusade.

Politico.com has described the Gore Effect thusly:

For several years now, skeptics have amusedly eyed a phenomenon known as “The Gore Effect” to half-seriously argue their case against global warming.

The so-called Gore Effect happens when a global warming-related event, or appearance by the former vice president and climate-change crusader Al Gore, is marked by exceedingly cold weather or unseasonably winter weather.

To witness this effect in Copenhagen this week, see the video below:

Go to the site to watch the video, funny stuff!

And from an older story on the Gore Effect:

Tracking 'The Gore Effect'
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15931.html

The so-called Gore Effect happens when a global warming-related event, or appearance by the former vice president and climate change crusader, Al Gore, is marked by exceedingly cold weather or unseasonably winter weather.


For instance, in March, 2007, a Capitol Hill media briefing on the Senate’s new climate bill was cancelled due to a snowstorm.


On Oct. 22, Gore’s global warming speech at Harvard University coincided with near 125-year record-breaking low temperatures. And less than a week later, on Oct. 28, the British House of Commons held a marathon debate on global warming during London’s first October snowfall since 1922.

 

[redrumloa]

Wow this is fun! This cold is not just Europe!

Record cold, snow envelop Japan Sea coast

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 218a5.html

Frigid air swept through a wide area along the Sea of Japan on Thursday, dumping record snowfalls and setting record-low temperatures for December in northern parts of the country, the Meteorological Agency said.

Local observatories measured 93 cm of snow in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, and 86 cm in the city of Akita in the morning, both breaking accumulation records.

The first snowfall of the season was recorded in warmer areas, including Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, and the cities of Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

In Memuro, central Hokkaido, temperatures dipped to minus 25, the lowest reading ever recorded in December. A number of cities saw the lowest temperatures of the season, including Sapporo at minus 7.1, Tokyo at 4.6, and the cities of Niigata and Miyazaki, where the mercury fell to 0.2.

The weekend forecast: continued cold and snow.

Snowing in Australia... In Summer!

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/a-sn ... mmer/13262

Most people consider summer a time to wear shorts and thongs wherever one pleases, with little thought of ski jackets or snowboards. However Victoria's Mount Baw Baw saw a light dusting of snow, and it's already two weeks into summer.

A cold front crossed the nation's southeast during Thursday, bringing gusty winds and some good falls to southern Victoria.

Mount Baw Baw was one of the many locations to receive these falls, 31 millimetres in fact. Part of this was snow, around five centimetres, not enough to rejuvenate the ski season, but enough to create an excited buzz.

Melbourne itself didn't miss out. The city recorded 10 millimetres, now making a total (so far) of 30 millimetres.

 

[smithy]

Yesterday lunchtime I drove from Newcastle to Durham and I've never seen anything like it! This is one of the 2 main A roads between these 2 places yet it wasn't gritted. The outside lane was unusable because the ice was so bad the car was incapable of driving in a straight line. There were dozens of abandoned cars along the roadside and there had been quite a few shunts.

We do see snow here every year, but it's quite unusual to see it in December. January/February/March are normally the coldest months here.

 

[faethor]

The climate of the planet is varied. It's always changing. The questions becomes when the change is human influenced is the direction of the change desireable.

The problem I have is we see Anti-GW crowd clamp on to 1 incident such as this and try to make outrageous claims about the climate. We see the GW crowd do similar things. While the 'groups' are out on the looney fringes it's impossible to come to a halfway rational consensus of next actions.

 

[Glaucus]

And yet here in Winterpeg we have hardly any snow and I was outside yesterday with a light fall jacket - highly unusual for this time of year. Funny that.

 

[faethor]

Winterpeg is my neighbor. (Okay closer than anyone else on this list.) Christmas is supposed to bring us about a foot of snow. If that happens we'll be more than a foot short for the year. But, at least we'll have a white Christmas.

 

[Fade]

Who are you trying to kid with that light jacket thing? Winnipeg hasn't been above freezing this whole month.

The cold has shrunk your brain Glaucus. (and probably other parts also)

http://www.winnipegweather.com/

Date Low °C High °C

19th -13.2 -7.6

20th -12.9 -5.4

yesterday -22.6 -11.7 or 12.2 °F high for the day!

 

[Glaucus]

Doh! Fade caught me in a lie.

Actually, I don't even know what the exact numbers were yesterday, but the sun was out and there was no wind at all. I remember this because I topped of the oil in my car from a 5L jug of oil and didn't use a funnel (the wind would have splashed it everywhere if there was). I also didn't wear my brand new Parasuco winter jacket because I didn't want to risk getting it all dirty while fiddling with engine parts. Instead I wore a much lighter jacket that I didn't care about. Also didn't wear gloves for the same reason. You're right the temp was below freezing but we get that from October until April or even May (which is why we call this place Winterpeg). And there is snow on the ground but in place you can still see the grass. Now that's very unusual. Typically at this time of year we have massive snow banks but so far the plows haven't come out at all.

But Faethor is right, snow is predicted for Christmas Eve.

 

[Robert]

It's unusually cold here. Could be in line for the first white Christmas in years.