It has been remarkably mild in Pennsylvania this winter. We are halfway through winter and hardly any days (or nights) have gone below 20 degrees. One snow worth digging, and even that got washed away by rain the next day. In the past two weeks we’ve had several days above 50 degrees, some near 60. New York City has experienced similar balmy conditions this winter.
The mildness here in the Eastern US and the very cold winter in much of Europe (as well as other weather) has common cause. The Global Wind patterns (jet stream, etc) have been severely affected by the current LaNina. Expect more of this type of weather over then next decade or two. That is because the Pacific Decadal Oscillation changed phase from warm to cold a few years ago, and LaNina will be much more frequent and more severe than ElNino until the PDO changes back to warm phase. In addition, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation recently changed phase, but I am not up to snuff on the ramifications of that.
The Danube River freezing news has me quite interested in discovering any history of that happening over the last century or more. As far as I can discover, the last time that happened was in 1985, and I have been able to locate no other historical references and records. I would appreciate it if people would ping me or link to me anything you run across having to do with history of Danube freezing.