Posted on 01/09/2009 2:51:02 PM PST by xcamel
A blast of frigid weather has claimed up to a dozen lives in Europe as temperatures tumbled below freezing overnight in what weather officials today dubbed the coldest night of winter. Polish police said the latest victims who froze to death yesterday included a 68-year-old homeless man found in an abandoned house in the southeast town of Jozefow, and a 51-year-old man who lived alone in central Eligiow and died a few steps away from his home. Five other deaths across Europe have also been blamed on the harsh blast of wintry weather, including that of a man in Milan who died when a canopy collapsed on him under the weight of snowfall. Temperatures in Poland dropped as low as -25deg Celsius. According to Interior Ministry data, hypothermia has been blamed for 76 deaths in Poland since November 2008.
Snowfalls disrupted air traffic across Europe, shutting down airports in Italy for several hours and paralysing TGV high-speed trains in France. Milan's two airports Malpensa and Linate, as well as the airports in Turin and Bergamo, were closed all morning after snow reached up to 30cm. The French weather service called it "the coldest night of winter'' so far with temperatures ranging for minus nine degress in Paris - the coldest since 1997 - and minus 20 degrees in the northern Ardennes region. The rare sight of snow was seen in the southern Mediterranean port of Marseille, closing the local airport and leaving some 12,000 households in the region without electricity.
Demand for power for heating has soared and raised the risk of power cuts, especially in Brittany and the southeast. Heavy snow has forced the closing of the mountainous French-Italian border since last night.
In Germany, where earlier this week a 77-year-old mentally ill woman froze to death, temperatures plummeted overnight with many areas recording record lows. The coldest place was Dippoldiswalde-Reinberg near Dresden in the east where the mercury plunged to -27.7deg. "Temperatures like this suggest that in certain places in the region the lowpoint must have been under the minus 30 mark,'' the German weather office said in a statement.
The freezing weather is expected to last through the week due to a stable mass of cold air coming from Scandanavia and Siberia, the French weather service said.
Climate Research NewsClick on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Climate Change?
Global Warming strikes again!!!
What a bunch of wussies! That’s not all THAT cold. C and F are equal at -40, -25 C is a mild night in a Wisconsin winter blast.
Get Algore out of Europe. His powers are getting too strong.
the title makes one think that winter weather is a new phenomenon in EU.
Yoda: “Algore strong, his power is.”
I bet that if you have Dr. Gore do the autopsies, you’ll find that they actually died of food poisoning.
How’s that global warming coming?
I defer to your superior Yoda language skills and insight.
Nice to see Global Warming is working out so well for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
