Massive snowstorm in Europe
October 20th, 2009 at 2:11 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
The biggest snowstorm in 25 years hit central Europe with amounts up to five feet atop Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany. In Austria, two day snowfalls of 2-3 feet caused some ski areas to have their earliest-ever opening day. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland were hit hard. Up to 20″ of snow fell in the mountains of the Czech Republic. Trees and power lines were toppled, with up to 700,000 customers without power during the unusual cold wave. In southern Poland three people froze to death. Huge waves destroyed a pier at Sopot in northern Poland. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians were without power after the storm. A major rail line from Switzerland to Austria was blocked by trees felled from the weight of the snow. The Polish government mobilized troops to assist the clean-up. Temperatures dropped to 11 above zero in southern Poland, extremely cold for this time of year. Back in the U.S., check out the snow on top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Mt. Washington hasn’t been above freezing in nine days. They had over a foot of snowfall in the first two weeks of October and temperatures for the month are more than 7 degrees cooler than average.
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Full Bio Chief Meteorologist Bill Steffen has been a familiar face in West Michigan since 1975.
October snow could mean January mud.
Looks like Wednesday could be our shot of reaching 70 or better here in GR.
SlimJim
Send Obama to appoligise for the USA. Must be our global warming causing the snowstorm. We certianly are neglagent with our carbon emisions. Or maybe we have too many trees and they are sucking the carbon out of the atmosphere and it is snowing white CO’2. Now they can sue us for neglegence.
Steve,
What does an individual have to do with weather? I thought that was an act of God!
Oh Michael, Michael, Michael!
Haven’t you learned yet? 0bama is no individual.
He is the 0ne!
Obama is the one WHAT? Be careful how much importance you put on one man!
Learn how to spell negligence. Then maybe you can look up pompous in the dictionary, and jackass while you’re at it. Now you should be able to understand the following sentence: You are a pompous jackass.
Shame on you Dan. There is no excuse for language like that here. By the way, what is up with people trying to correct others spelling on here? Are we all Language experts or are we just trying to look smart? Either way, correcting spelling on a blog only makes you look like your trying to sound smart. It’s not working!!!
Peace Out,
looks like Dan drank the Kool Aid
WOW! Dan should probably look up hypocrite…
lol
Dan, as right as you are this is a weather blog, and a darn good one at that. Lets keep this thing family friendly.
Massive gas price increase in GR: Speedway raised to $2.75 this morning- get it cheaper while you can.
Good Day,
Could this in anyway be indicative of what our winter will be like?
Steelie
Only if you live in Europe.
Good Day,
That’s humorous… in a good way. And now the record cold in Bavaria… that is pretty far South for that kind of chill.
I wonder if there is any info that might conjoin the European cold/snow with our winters of ‘76/’77? In that, did Europe suffer similar early cold in those years before we had our massive blizzards? Bill, do you know, I have not found a good site to compare the historical measurements. Doh… Thanks!
Steelie
Bill, any chance of clearing skies by early morning before sunrise so we might be able to see the meteor shower?
No, looking pretty gray…
Hey,Im sitting outside in the drizzle having a nice little bonfire when i hear thunder to my WNW. Im pretty sure it was thunder. I seen they had lightning down by Chicago around 10:30pm. 53.1° now.
Yep. I looked on the lightning loop and it shows it over by the Cedar Springs area. I heard it at 1:50am. Cool. So it was’nt the PBR’s.
Bonfire is now on a rain/thunderstorm delay. Went back out and the rain had picked up which was’nt bad and i could handle.(Country Boy). Then i had a bright flash at 2:30am and 3 seconds later the thunder rolled. It was a good loud one.(Forget the Country Boy). Im inside for a bit.
Thanks for the update, wife was wondering if she heard thunder…Lol
Went back out at 3:05 AM and finished the bonfire. Rain and lightning stoped. Mite be in trouble though. After lightning struck close i grabed PBR and seat cushion,flashlite and skided in the door to living room like Crammer from Siendfeld only to leave mud/dirt on the carpet. OPPS! Whats a fella to do? Anyways 51° now and got the woodstove going to take the chill off.
I woke up to the rain around 1:40 this AM and looked outside just as we got a good flash of lightning. I was a bit surprised at that!
Had rain here (0.11″) Sorry to say I did not see any lightning but that dose not mean a thing as I have slept thru some big storms LOL Also I should add that with a temp of 53° it almost feels like spring out, well almost! Today’s is our best shot of making it to 70 for this October if we dont we probably wont make to this October. I kind of hope we dont but hey if we do we do.
SlimJim
I HEARD THE THUNDER TOO THIS MORNING!!! Between 1:30-2:00AM. Was a great sound to hear. Then I went back to sleep haha
Im glad other folks heard it also. Otherwise some mite of thought i was seeing/hearing things. I did’nt see any talk of it on the weather at 5am with Terri,but i mite have missed it. 52.3° now. Have a great day.
Hurry up and get that carbon TAX passed before the people figure out this global warming is just a hoax.
How long is it going to take for people to wake up and realize that global warming is just a money-grabbing hoax?
Maybe.
Or it could kill us all. Either way, reducing pollution is never a bad thing. Personally, I don’t want to find out.
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Hey, Bill! What’s up with that?