Cold snap wreaks havoc across Europe

Zero Celcius, the temperature at which water freezes, is 32°F. 10° below, Celcius, is +14°F, cold, but not unusually cold. We've had nights much colder than that in Denver already this year. The low forecast for Montreal, Canada for tonight is 8°F, -13°C.

Thomas,

It appears that the "cold snap" is quite widespread. I watched the Italian news (TG 24) a few minutes ago, and it looked like FCO is closed (at least temporarily). From what I could get with my limited Italian skills, schools in Milan will be closed tomorrow as well.

Hopefully it will improve soon.

Cheers!

Thomas, we had a daytime high temperature today of minus 11 C here in Montreal and it was perfectly fine. Everyone was out and about doing their shopping and dogwalking, etc., without the usual hunched-up shoulders that the really cold weather causes. Last week we had a couple of days of minus 22 C with high winds, and that was brutal. We certainly don't consider minus 10 to be dangerous in this neck of the woods.

Minus ten degrees Celsius is not really that cold. The lowest temperature in the Czech Republic was minus 26.5 degrees Celsius. That was in Horska Kvilda in the Sumava mountains. Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) had minus 19 degrees C.

In Denver, -10°C isn't even long sleeve shirt weather.

The coldest I think I have ever experienced was -28°F in Idaho Falls, Idaho. That's -33°C.

I had to change the tire on my car when it was -25F once. -10C is nothing, unless your house has little or no insulation in it - which is the case in much of southern Europe.

It was -21°C in Marburg this weekend and got the record for Hessen. Frankfurt was -18°C. It was simply cold. Water pipes were busting and they had to keep calling the fire dept. out.
Snowed again all last night. Very pretty and it got a tad bit warmer.

The weather here in the south interior of B.C. has been about +2C or so most of the day and raining lightly. However, the forecast is calling for "lows" of -14C by Wednesday, with skies clearing and sunshine.

Edmonton achieved the dubious status as the coldest spot in Canada in the last week or so. It was -46C at the airport, and with the wind chill factor about -59C!

We are in the 60's during the day and maybe in the 40's at night. I got cold this evening and even put on the heater. I can't imagine how all of you do it! I know, I Know... I am a wuss!

Wadya mean minus-ten is not so bad!? We had beer bottles EXPLODING on our porch! :-)

Thomas - Bring the beer inside man. LOL

LOL! I had the same thought as Joel.

Here in Seattle, we generally stay around 40F (about 4.5 C). However, we got our cold snap two weeks ago, and the average daily temperature was about half that. Not quite bad enough to break the pipes, but they did freeze and it was not fun--especially not when I hit a patch of black ice on the way to work and spun out while merging onto the freeway. Fortunately, no harm & no damage.

Thankfully the temperatures have returned to their rightful place in the 40s.

Well, we used to colder temperatures for sure and to more snow as well. But most of Europe isn't. And they don't have the equipment to handle it. Saw a the thingy that was cleaning the entire market square and probably pretty much all the streets of the small town in Westphalia where we are staying right now. Probably not much bigger than what we see clearing a sidewalk back in Calgary ...

as a result our luggage has been missing for 5 days now. Which means we arrived sans clothing, Christmas presents for the family and all the chargers for cameras, cell phone, iPods, netbook. And having to go shopping for underwear and socks braving the crowds 2 days before Christmas is not my idea of a fun holiday.

And please don't tell me that we should have done carry-on. This is the first Christmas in 15 years that I'm celebrating with my father, the first time ever my kids celebrate with their granddad and their cousins. I did want to bring a bit more than what fits into a 20" case. My daughter even made a special piece of art for her Opa ...

I do understand that traffic gets into a chaos in weather like this. But it doesn't account for the thousands of pieces of delayed-lost luggage these days. My husband got stuck in Seattle because of a blizzard in Calgary a few weeks back. He had his suitcase within 15 minutes of flight cancellation and spent an extra night in a nice hotel and had champagne and oysters for dinner. None of that here.

And our time on Christmas markets is cut shorter, too, since that's not the place to shop for long underwear or shoes.

-21F this morning. Now that's cold!

Beatrix,

Sorry to hear about your travel problems. Hopefully your luggage will arrive soon!

I've found that it's a good idea to pack a "backup kit" in my carry-on, which includes one pair each (Tilley) underwear and socks, Razor, Toothbrush and a ChargePod kit for essential electronics. Along with my 3-1-1 liquids bag, I could easily last for a week without my main Pack.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas in Germany!

It is amazing how all the political hacks forget about "global warming" during times like these!

No Dan, they don't....but they do look for the long-term trends over the entire globe, not some few days' weather conditions in one part of the world.

One other note.....

According to the news this morning, the U.K. especially was being affected with miserable weather, which included snow, freezing rain and slush. This disrupted road, rail and air services and caused numerous "fender benders".

The forecast tomorrow calls for some warming, so hopefully things will improve.

Beatrix, I'm so sorry to hear of your bad luck. It sounds miserable. I hope things get better very soon for you.

We just received a phone call that two of our suitcases will be delivered today. At least something. When my kids were little I always travelled with backup clothing for the babies - and never had room left for anything for myself. It feels nice to be able to travel a bit lighter and include a book or some knitting ;-) instead. At least we had the electronic gifts for our kids in the carry-on. And my girls had their carry-ons stuffed with books which was really a life saver while waiting hours at the airport and on the long train rides also with delays. Each of them was on their second book before we arrived at Opa's place!