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Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#121

Post by King-Aaron »

baxtr wrote: post #54
cs702 wrote: post #11

For those accustomed to US/Imperial units, -25×9÷5+32=-13°F. Temperatures in Madrid dropped to -16°C (3°F). As others here have mentioned, these temperatures are unusually low for January in this region of Spain. They are the kinds of temperatures one would have seen in January during the "Little Ice Age" between the 15th and 19th centuries.[a][b][c] Let's hope this unusual drop in temperature is just a "one-off" rar…

Wasn’t this kinda expected? It’s an El Niño year I believe? Australian summer is also colder than usual I think. EDIT: Seems like it’s a “La niña” Winter...

41 degrees in Perth the other day, it seems pretty on par on this side of the island

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#122

Post by cal5k »

darthcoder4242 wrote: post #51
cal5k wrote: post #2

Cold-blooded Canadian here, so forgive me for asking - is this highly unusual?

I am from Madrid, and I can tell this is in fact highly unusual. From time to time it might snow in Madrid a couple of days, but nothing like this. In the mountains of course it happen almost every year, but not in the plains... All the cities in central Spain are collapsed by the ice and snow (including the capital), there are no public transportation, emergencies services can barely make it into affected zones, a l…

Ah. Well, that makes sense. When it gets down to -25 here (thankfully not all that often in Southern Alberta) I just don't spend much time outside... although -25C still isn't cold enough to necessitate plugging in the truck. It gets truly, bitterly cold in places like Saskatoon, Edmonton or Winnipeg... -40 is not altogether uncommon.

My house of made of Insulated Concrete Forms and has an amazing r value. A hot fire in the wood stove can quickly heat the whole place up to 22C, even when it's -20 outside.

It can snow 50cm over a 12hr period, though, and that's always fun to deal with. I've gotten badly stuck in my own driveway twice this year (it's 40 feet long & annoying to clear), and both times the snowblower conked out and I had to take the thing apart and fix it before I was able to go into town to get groceries. Clearing the driveway with a shovel is simply not possible unless you plan to spend an entire day doing it.

Anyhoo, all this to say is - dealing with that kind of weather requires some preparation, and I can see how it would cause mayhem in a place where that's unusual. Hopefully when air travel becomes abundant again I can travel to Spain to enjoy its warmth :-P

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#123

Post by mactitan »

raarts wrote: post #36

For those interested in events like this. There's a guy[1] that collects reports on cold weather records and maintains a mailing list. He's a wonky guy and kinda bent on the solar minimum but if you can see past that, his list does a good job of reporting on cold extremes across the world. [1] electroverse.net

Well he’s saying Site is being demonetized. It’s posting this interesting comment in the articles(that seems to contradict some of the posts on this thread):

Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with NOAA saying we’re entering a ‘full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum in the late-2020s, and NASA seeing this upcoming solar cycle (25) as “the weakest of the past 200 years”, with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#124

Post by tpmx »

ska wrote: post #111
tpmx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing the topography of Spain helps. My interpretation is that the very, very woke BBC staff picked what seems like extreme temps from a mountain region and then technically correctly wrote that "Central Spain" "records temperatures of -25C". That is all. Do note: I'm not a climate change denier. I just hate crap like this, with a passion. I don't think we should have to abandon facts in this particular fight. It s…

This takes seems really off to me somehow. They reported a min temperature of -25C, noted it is in an area known as "spanish siberia" (e.g. somewhere that expects cold weather) then note that it was unusually cold even for there, the coldest in 'at least 20 years'. They also reported -16C in Madrid itself, and the struggles that hospitals were having with a combination of COVID impact and a large number of additional…

Well, it's the headline we're talking about. As I wrote, "Yes, the headline is quite misleading."

Without that headline, this post wouldn't have been made it here.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#125

Post by tomalpha »

tpmx wrote: post #108
tomalpha wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really interesting - thank you for replying.

Hey, I now see that my reply was kinda "bossy". Sorry; I was just a bit upset.

No offence taken. I happen to disagree with you about the headline interpretation and the BBC wokeness bit but that’s what a good debating environment is for. (Without arguing the merits either way on the wider issue, I think this isn’t a good article to demonstrate over-wokeness at the BBC for example).

All that said though, it’s interesting to hear others’ points of view and the thanks for replying was genuinely meant.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#126

Post by tharkun__ »

serf wrote: post #94
throw0101a wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in Canada: you don't have to shovel rain.

as a former citizen of Huntington Beach CA during the 1997 El Nino storms, i'd take the snow. I have the newspaper clipping of my grandmother being rescued from her home via dinghy by city rescue workers. Everyone I knew had their house ruined in hours after weeks of shoveling sandbags fruitlessly in front of the neighborhoods and homes. And that was just the flood damage and personal effect , itself. Untold amounts…

Snow is awesome!

Except when it all melts in spring all at once and the river(s) flood their surroundings. The ones that stupid (or corrupt or both) city planners and developers have been building on for years now. Flood plains? What's that? Oh you mean all that nice river front property that would sell for really great prices?

The bridge I used to take to work (before covid) is also affected by this. Both in the sense that the only other bridge to take from here was getting closed due to the rivers water level, meaning traffic doubled overnight and in the sense that we were mere inches away from that bridge also having to close.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#127

Post by selimthegrim »

dsego wrote: post #100
throw0101a wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in Canada: you don't have to shovel rain.

There is a funny joke about a Bosnian in Canada, you may appreciate it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3dcn76/the_diary_of_...

They have plenty of snow in Bosnia last I checked

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#128

Post by OldHand2018 »

maxerickson wrote: post #97
arcturus17 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I meant when I said it’s normal that we are ill-prepared for this situation.

Just for the sake of comparison, Detroit gets ~33 inches of snow a year (~84 cm) and takes a number of days to clear out after much of a blizzard. It's not real worth it to have an excess of equipment that really only sees a few days of use a year (or decade!).

> It's not real worth it to have an excess of equipment that really only sees a few days of use a year (or decade!)

That’s just silly. Almost every garbage truck in Chicago has the equipment to allow a plow to be attached to it. They can nearly double their fleet of plows for big storms, which are pretty rare.

There was a unexpected blizzard in 1979 right before the mayoral election and the mayor lost because the city didn’t plow the streets fast enough. Ever since then, Chicago has always had more snow plows than needed. Even political cronies go out and shovel sidewalks because they are so afraid of losing due to snow.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#129

Post by throw0101a »

serf wrote: post #94
throw0101a wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in Canada: you don't have to shovel rain.

as a former citizen of Huntington Beach CA during the 1997 El Nino storms, i'd take the snow. I have the newspaper clipping of my grandmother being rescued from her home via dinghy by city rescue workers. Everyone I knew had their house ruined in hours after weeks of shoveling sandbags fruitlessly in front of the neighborhoods and homes. And that was just the flood damage and personal effect , itself. Untold amounts…

Oh, in Canada we have snow and flooding:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/opg-flood-review-1.537...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_of_the_North#Floods

The Maritimes especially gets all sort of weather.

Re: Central Spain records temperatures of -25°C after snowstorm

#130

Post by maaaaattttt »

cambalache wrote: post #117
maaaaattttt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree this is rather limited to the south coast and the islands. But I would argue that high energy consumption could, in this case, very well be the sign of poor insulation and inefficient heating installations (A/C).

On what grounds would you base that on beyond your prejudices?

I'm sorry if it came out as prejudicial. It was not intended in this way. It was more of an observation after having lived there for some years and witnessed it first hand.

I did a quick search for more objective observations and what I found was:

Homes labelled A, B and C account for less than 10% of the housing stock. […] Most of households in the sample (52%) are E rated. F and G rated residences account for almost 25% of the sample. [1][2]

In Spain, buildings are currently responsible for 31% of energy consumption. […] the classification A - the highest - involves spending up to 10 times less than the G - the lowest -. Currently, in Spain most buildings have an E, F or G rating.[3]

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... (4. Results and discussion)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label

[3] https://www.interregeurope.eu/enerselves/news/news-article/2...

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