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Blizzard in North America, warm as spring in Europe |
Severe weather warnings are still in place for many parts of the US with more snow to come, while parts of Europe saw record warm temperatures in January.
A massive winter storm has battered swathes of the United States and Canada, killing at least 60 people and leaving millions without electricity. With an estimated width of more than 3,000 kilometers, the storm, dubbed a “bomb cyclone,” began sweeping across North America on December 23, 2022.
In Buffalo, New York, USA, more than 120 centimeters of snow fell in 72 hours, while the temperature in Montana dropped to minus 39 degrees Celsius. The travel plans of millions of people have been disrupted, thousands of flights have been cancelled, and main roads have been clogged with snow and abandoned vehicles.
The storm is caused by an arctic wind known as a polar vortex. Some scientists suspect that human-caused climate change may exacerbate the instability of the polar climate system.
The Arctic is one of the fastest warming regions on Earth, narrowing the temperature gap between cold air in the Arctic and warm air in the south. But that could disrupt the flow of the polar vortex, destabilizing a high airflow known as a polar jet, causing it to push warmer air towards the North Pole while pushing cooler air from the North Pole south.
The National Weather Service has warned that the Great Lakes region will be hit by heavy snow, freezing rain and severe thunderstorms starting January 3, 2023, with blizzards and wind gusts “causing road closures in Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota”. the covered and reduced visibility made travel difficult or even impossible.”
Meanwhile, California saw torrential rains and snowfall in the early days of 2023, leading to flash flooding and landslides. It’s just the first of several storms to hit the state over the next few days, according to the National Weather Service.
While North America battled freezing rain and snow, Europe was greeted with record-breaking warm weather. Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland all set records for the hottest January on record on January 1, 2023, according to Maximiliano Herrera, an independent climatologist who tracks temperature extremes.
In Poland, on New Year’s Day, the temperature in Korbelow and other places reached 19 degrees Celsius, much higher than the average January temperature of 1 degree Celsius. The highest temperature in South Moravia, in the Czech Republic, reached 19.6 degrees Celsius.
In 2022, Europe will experience its hottest summer ever. And this year was the hottest on record in the UK.
The Met Office has warned that 2023 could be one of the warmest years on record for the planet, with average global temperatures expected between 1.08 and 1.32°C above pre-industrial levels.
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