Moscow goes mild: Winter temperatures break 33yo warmth record
Winters
in Russia are usually not for the faint of heart. From temperatures
buried in the negatives to cities grinding to a halt due to snowfall,
it’s essential you’re winter-ready. This year though, it’s
panned out a little differently.
People
may not be basking in sunshine but with Monday temperatures in Moscow
and St. Petersburg at 9 Celsius (48.2 Fahrenheit), it’s certainly
milder than people are used to. Social media has been alight with
imagery that wouldn’t look out of place in spring time Russia, with
trees blossoming and normally snow-laden landscapes now green.
Roman
Winter has gone from Moscow ten days before the New Year.
With
average Moscow temperatures for December 2014 around -4 Celsius,
Muscovites enjoyed warmer weather on Monday morning than the likes of
New York (9C) and even Rome (8C), where Italians were practically
freezing while eating their gelato. On Monday, Moscow temperatures
broke the 33-year-old warmth record.
The
milder winter temperatures come following a record breaking 25C in
September, the highest in 90 years.
While
some parts of Russia are certainly enjoying fewer snow-filled days,
not everyone is as lucky. Places like Tyumen Region are enduring
their expectedly cold temperatures and snow-covered lands, although
it does result in some nice, albeit cold, sunsets.
Snowman in Kaliningrad (Russia) - the new normal...
Dreaming
of a white Christmas? Chances are you're not going to get it in
Sweden, which has been enjoying an unusually balmy run-up to the
holiday season.
Santon
Downham in Suffolk and Bedford both had record-breaking December
temperatures over the weekend.
- Santon Downham reached 16.0C on Saturday.
- Bedford reached 15.7C on Saturday.
The
warmest place in the Anglia region was Writtle, Essex at 16.4C on
Saturday.
The
highest ever December temperature in England was 17.7C recorded in
Chivenor, (Devon) in 1985 and Penkridge, (Staffordshire) in 1994.
This
December is well on course to warmest on record in the Anglia region.
North
America
December 25, 2015: Extreme weather for North America, with temperatures as low as 30.6°F or -0.8°C in California and as high as 71.5°F or 22°C in North Carolina.
"
2,600 daily record high temperatures that have been tied or broken
across the Lower 48 in the first 19 days of the month."
December
21, 2015
Record-breaking
warmth for late-December standards will grip much of the central and
eastern states Christmas week, continuing what has already been a
very mild month in those regions. Several cities in the East will
likely see their warmest Christmas Eve or Christmas Day on record,
adding to the more than 2,600 daily record high temperatures that
have been tied or broken across the Lower 48 in the first 19 days of
the month.
This
mild forecast means the prospect for a white Christmas is highly
unlikely for many east of the Rockies.
Spain
Freak Wildfire Outbreak Strikes Northern Spain During Winter
Over
the weekend an unexplained wildfire outbreak erupted across the
Asturias and Cantabria regions of Northern Spain.
In total, more than 100 blazes flared as 60 mile-per-hour winds and
freakishly warm temperatures in the upper 60s to lower 70s
(Fahrenheit — 15 to 20 degrees Celsius) spread across Spain’s
northern coastal provinces.
More
than 200 firefighters responded to the strange outbreak — one
all-too-certainly linked to record warm global temperatures in the
range of 1.06 C above 1880s averages.
Fortunately, there are currently no reports of injuries or loss of
property or life. Just an odd and somewhat terrifying mass wildfire
eruption occurring in typically damp North Spain at a time near the
Winter Solstice.
Another
Abnormal Winter Wildfire Event
Though
the cause of these fires has yet to be officially determined,
temperatures in the range of 9-18 degrees Fahrenheit (5-10 C) above
average and very strong winds — gusting up to 60 miles per hour —
likely contributed to this anomalous winter wildfire outbreak. This
warm air flow was pulled northward along the eastern edge of a
powerful Atlantic weather pattern that, through most of Fall and
Winter, has been hurling strong storms into Iceland, coastal France,
the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia. These warm winds gained extreme
intensity on Saturday and Sunday and likely sparked and fanned the
wildfires (in much the same manner that Santa Anna winds risk
wildfires in California).
(On
Saturday and Sunday, powerful southerly winds and abnormally warm
temperatures swept over Northern Spain — setting the stage for a
freak mass wildfire outbreak during winter time. Image source: Earth
Nullschool.)
It
is not usual at all for wildfires to occur during Winter anywhere in
Spain, especially not along the northern coastal regions where cool,
wet weather tends to prevail as December transitions into January.
But this year the typical rainfall pattern has been interspersed with
warm, windy periods and comes at the end of a long, much hotter than
normal year. A heat that has almost certainly contributed to a fire
year that, for Spain, has
resulted in the burning of more acres during 2015 than for all of the
previous two years combined.
As
with other recent large Winter wildfire outbreaks,
the influence of a human-forced warming of the global climate system
is writ large. Winter wildfire outbreaks, especially in the Northern
Hemisphere, are becoming more frequent — with some major winter
wildfire outbreaks even extending to regions near or above the Arctic
Circle. Fires that are upshots to an overall extension of the fire
season combined with a much greater frequency of wildfire outbreak.
It’s trend that comes both from a larger warming of the Earth’s
climate system. And not only does the added heat itself fuel a higher
frequency of wildfire outbreak, it also increases drought intensity
and the speed of drought onset — which generates a compounding
factor for increasing wildfire frequency.
Major
news media sources reporting on these incidents have yet to make this
all-too-obvious link. And, given continued sparse analysis on human
forced climate change as a whole, it’s questionable that they ever
will.
Links:
Hat
Tip to Wharf Rat
The Big Apple is heating back up, with temperatures expected to top 70 degrees on Christmas Eve.
After a cold weekend, temps will begin a climb on Monday to 56 degrees.
Rain is expected Tuesday, the first day of winter, with a high of 63 degrees.
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