Record Cold in Europe Leaves Hundreds Dead
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012Feb. 15, 2012
A record-breaking cold snap that began in late January has left more than 600 people dead in Eastern Europe. Authorities confirmed today that the bitter cold has claimed the lives of more than 300 people in Russia and Ukraine alone. The meteorological institute in the Czech Republic reported the lowest-ever temperature for February 5: -38 °F (-39 °C). Ice has closed the Danube River to navigation in Austria, and even Venice’s famed canals are frozen over.
The region also has been pummeled by the heaviest blizzards in recent memory. In the Czech Republic, blinding snow caused two massive car pile-ups today, involving some 100 vehicles. Entire communities in Bosnia and Italy are inaccessible due to heavy snowfall and electric-power outages. Officials estimate that more than 20,000 people remain isolated in hard-hit Romania, where more than a week of heavy snowfall has blocked roads and crippled the rail system. In Bulgaria, a combination of snowmelt and heavy rains caused a dam to burst, killing four people in a village downstream.
According to meteorologists (people who study the science of weather), the frigid air and snow in Eastern Europe is caused by differences in atmospheric pressure between the Arctic and mid-latitudes (the areas on Earth between the tropics and the polar regions). When air pressure over the Arctic is low and pressure over the mid-latitudes is high, prevailing winds confine extremely cold air to the Arctic. However, when air pressure over the Arctic rises in conjunction with falling air pressure at the mid-latitudes, Arctic air moves south, as it is doing now. Another factor, note meteorologists, is a very strong and persistent high-pressure area over Russia. Airflow around this high is transporting cold Siberian air west into Europe.
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