This winter
It was 22 oC today and the day started with rain but there is still some left over snow lying in the shade. This means it lasted the whole week and that's longer then I ever expected it to last. It's because there was so much of it and because it iced over. The bits that are left are all snow that's hard and solid and very slick on the outside so even when it rains the water just streams of it without really dissolving much. They are also mostly in shade and mostly made of pile-ups that snow ploughs made on the sides of the streets. One of the things that annoyed me here was that they cleared up the roads but not the sidewalks so being pedestrian sucked until the sun and weather did it's thing but there are still some sidewalks blocked and some bus stops covered in sheet of snow-ice. However, this shows how they managed to store snow for the Sochi Olympics for years in through all the tropical summers. Leave it in shade, piled up and covered with something insulating and melting would happen very, very slowly.
The Olympics were experiencing a very warm weather (even for that place in the world) and had some problems with keeping snow in temperatures more like late spring. Of course, if you care to remember Vancouver, despite being much further North, also had the weather problem. Still this has been, so far, a rather warm winter in Europe. I mentioned this about Poland but this is true for most of Northern Europe - Sweden, Germany, Belgium, even Greenland is warmer then usual. The storms that have been slowly dissolving Britain into the North Sea are also channelling warm air to the rest of Europe. They dump all the water on the isles and the warm air continues over the rest of Europe not letting the cold air in.
This is due to the same weather patterns caused all the cold and snow in North America's eastern part. The same weather system that makes Alaska warm and California experience record draught. The same thing that cause record snowfalls in Japan. (Tokyo's 27 cm - exactly the length of my foot - wouldn't be big in more winter prone areas but there it's as bad as here in US South) Global Warming leads to lesser difference in temperatures between polar regions and temperate zones and it's making jetstream slower. And slower jetstream means it's more susceptible to course changes. The "long wave pattern" it takes bends all over letting harsh winter push down over the east ends and then bringing warm, wet ocean air to the north west of continents.
The Olympics were experiencing a very warm weather (even for that place in the world) and had some problems with keeping snow in temperatures more like late spring. Of course, if you care to remember Vancouver, despite being much further North, also had the weather problem. Still this has been, so far, a rather warm winter in Europe. I mentioned this about Poland but this is true for most of Northern Europe - Sweden, Germany, Belgium, even Greenland is warmer then usual. The storms that have been slowly dissolving Britain into the North Sea are also channelling warm air to the rest of Europe. They dump all the water on the isles and the warm air continues over the rest of Europe not letting the cold air in.
This is due to the same weather patterns caused all the cold and snow in North America's eastern part. The same weather system that makes Alaska warm and California experience record draught. The same thing that cause record snowfalls in Japan. (Tokyo's 27 cm - exactly the length of my foot - wouldn't be big in more winter prone areas but there it's as bad as here in US South) Global Warming leads to lesser difference in temperatures between polar regions and temperate zones and it's making jetstream slower. And slower jetstream means it's more susceptible to course changes. The "long wave pattern" it takes bends all over letting harsh winter push down over the east ends and then bringing warm, wet ocean air to the north west of continents.