Even though it's been remakably mild in these parts (VA) this winter it's been very, very cold in Northern Canada and Alaska. It's also been colder than usual and very snowy all over Europe. We've lucked out becaus the Artic oscillation and the ATantic oscillation are working to keep the jet stream to our north while farther east it's dipping quite low.
My wife and I wwwere at the Back Bay wildlife3 refuge a couple of weeks ago and there was a huge, huge flock of Artic swans on back bay...they come evry year but this was the biggest gathering I'd seen in years, and a woman who was taking pictures, said she was a biologist but what do I know, said that the migrations were bigger because of the incredible cold up north.
When it snows 6 inches in the Sahara you know it is cold.
Amazingly, the Sahara Desert, which had no snow for 33 years until a brief fall in western Algeria last month, faces an inch of snow by the weekend.
Meteogroup forecaster Stephen Davenport, who said parts of north Africa face six inches of powder, said: “The deep cold is spreading surprisingly far south.