Heaviest Snow in Decades Batters U.K., Ireland and the Continent
- 6 years ago
Heaviest Snow in Decades Batters U.K., Ireland and the Continent
The National Grid, the operator of Britain’s power and gas networks, issued a warning
that Britain might not have enough gas to meet demand on Thursday as temperatures continued to plummet and imports were hit by power failures.
Meteorologists say that the cold spell could last for up to two weeks, and
that even with temperatures expected to rise during the day next week, temperatures will most likely remain close to freezing at night.
Adding to the problems in Britain, a storm system heading up from the south is colliding with the Siberian air mass, bringing as much as two feet
of drifting snow amid blizzard conditions to the moorlands of Devon, as well as Cornwall and South Wales, before barreling toward Ireland.
Ireland was bracing for a direct hit on Thursday from Emma, the powerful storm system roaring up from the Bay of Biscay
that is expected to deliver 60-mile-an-hour winds and fine, granular snow, leading to snow drifts and whiteout conditions across most or all of the island.
Chloe Moore said that These changes in the upper areas of the atmosphere over the North Pole then lead to the jet stream
being pushed southwards, which is what normally drives weather patterns in the U.K. and northwestern Europe,
The cold weather in Britain and northwestern Europe is to some extent a mirror image of the "sudden stratospheric warming" in the arctic, experts say, referring to a disturbance in the polar jet stream
that has alarmed scientists and forced some to reconsider even the most pessimistic forecasts for climate change.
The National Grid, the operator of Britain’s power and gas networks, issued a warning
that Britain might not have enough gas to meet demand on Thursday as temperatures continued to plummet and imports were hit by power failures.
Meteorologists say that the cold spell could last for up to two weeks, and
that even with temperatures expected to rise during the day next week, temperatures will most likely remain close to freezing at night.
Adding to the problems in Britain, a storm system heading up from the south is colliding with the Siberian air mass, bringing as much as two feet
of drifting snow amid blizzard conditions to the moorlands of Devon, as well as Cornwall and South Wales, before barreling toward Ireland.
Ireland was bracing for a direct hit on Thursday from Emma, the powerful storm system roaring up from the Bay of Biscay
that is expected to deliver 60-mile-an-hour winds and fine, granular snow, leading to snow drifts and whiteout conditions across most or all of the island.
Chloe Moore said that These changes in the upper areas of the atmosphere over the North Pole then lead to the jet stream
being pushed southwards, which is what normally drives weather patterns in the U.K. and northwestern Europe,
The cold weather in Britain and northwestern Europe is to some extent a mirror image of the "sudden stratospheric warming" in the arctic, experts say, referring to a disturbance in the polar jet stream
that has alarmed scientists and forced some to reconsider even the most pessimistic forecasts for climate change.