Europe freeze hits transport hubs (BBC)
Freezing weather has hit transport hubs across Europe, closing airports, blocking roads and halting trains.
London's Heathrow cancelled 30% of Sunday's flights, and dozens of flights were delayed at Amsterdam's Schiphol.
Transport hubs in Central and Eastern Europe have been forced to close amid the biggest freeze in decades, which has claimed more than 200 lives.
Bosnian officials have declared a state of emergency in Sarajevo, where snow has paralysed the city.
In Serbia, a state of emergency is in place across much of the country.
Thousands of people are said to be trapped in their homes across both countries, and many travellers have been stranded.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16887916
Merkins tend to think Europe doesn't have nasty weather like we do in NA -- but Europe has been having some calamitous weather the last few years. I wonder how much of it is just more thorough coverage by US news (or, more likely, the Web) than in previous decades ?
= new reply since forum marked as read
or once-in-fifty-years weather here in SW. Europe.
Snow down to sea-level on the Mediterranean Spanish coast is, um, quite unusual. The key to it is the deep low-pressure storm centered over central Italy which, rotating counter-clockwise, draws cold air from the still high-pressure area over the Russian arctic in strong winds westwards and southwards over Eastern, Central and Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Maghreb. Even down here in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Southern Morocco and Sáhara, we are being blasted by a strong cold ENE wind today, although the snowline will be ... quite high on our volcanic mountainsides:
[center]
Gran Canaria; Tenerife in the backround ([a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide"]El Teide[/a]).[/center]
They say the big question now is whether the weather will change after Sunday, with warmer air pushing in with new depressions from the North Atlantic, or whether these will fail to break the current pattern, letting us in for another week at least of deep freeze.
Europe's natural gas supplies by pipeline are, as every winter, critical:
European commission puts its gas co-ordination committee on alert as Russian supplies to some states dwindle[/center]
... An energy crisis is looming as Russian gas supplies to some states dwindle by up to 30%. Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Italy are those worst affected.
On Thursday the Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom said it was sending as much gas as it could spare to Europe, and that Ukraine, whose pipelines carry Russian gas to the EU, must be taking more than its contracted share. Kiev has flatly denied doing so.
The European commission put its gas co-ordination committee on alert, but said it was not yet an emergency...
/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/europe-cold-energy-death-toll
