Strange winter weather

From The Times 14 January 2005

Many skiers in Europe are facing a bleak time at the moment. The last decent snows for many resorts fell around Christmas time, and since then temperatures have rocketed, with blazing sunshine adding to a widespread thaw to reveal alarming patches of rock among slushy snow. In fact, resorts are reporting that it feels more like springtime than the depths of winter.

That warmth is being pumped in on mild southwesterly winds from the Atlantic and extends across a vast swath of Europe. In Oslo, the first six days of January were the warmest on record since 1938, and Moscow has been basking in temperatures some 8.5C (15.3F) above normal for January. Wildlife is now getting confused, with bears in Slovakia and the Czech Republic reported to be waking up from hibernation.

Skiers desperate for snowy slopes are advised to head for the US, where phenomenal snowfalls have swamped the Rockies recently. Two gigantic storms in the Sierras delivered the heaviest snowfall in the area since 1916, with over 3.7m (12ft) of snow having fallen since December 21.

However, avalanches are becoming a big risk and a train was derailed on Saturday when it hit a huge snowdrift. Snowstorms have also swept across the East Coast with dumps of up to 40cm (16in) in New York state, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, and smaller falls in the northeast and eastern Canada.