WTF is wrong with this thing we call winter?!

[Peter Triggs]

These are the forecast highs for Moscow for this week:

+2°C, +1°C, +1°C, +5°C(=41°F), +5°C, +4°C, +2°C

I was re-reading Schirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and was gobsmacked when I came across this passage:

Guderian noted the first snow on the night of October 6-7(my italics), just as the drive on Moscow was being resumed. It reminded him to ask headquarters again for winter clothing, especially for heavy boots and heavy wool socks. On October 12 he recorded the snow as still falling. On November 3 came the first cold wave, the thermometer dropping below the freezing point and continuing to fall. By the seventh Guderian was reporting the first "severe cases of frostbite" in his ranks and on the thirteenth that the temperature had fallen to 8 degrees below zero, Fahenheit [=-22C], and that the lack of winter clothing "was becoming increasingly felt." The bitter cold affected guns and machines as well as men.

Ice was causing a lot of trouble [Guderian wrote] since the caulks for the tank tracks had not yet arrived. The cold made the telescopic sights useless. In order to start the engines of the tanks fires had to be lit beneath them. Fuel was freezing on occasion and the oil had become viscous...Each regiment [of the 112th Infantry Division] had already lost some 500 men from frostbite. As a result of the cold the machine guns were no longer able to fire and our 37mm. antitank guns had proved ineffective against the [Russian] T-34 tank.

Guderian must be spinning in his grave. Had he faced a winter like the current one, it's likely that history would have been much different.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Aro


Actually... Both.

Global warming has no significant effect on any single year's temperature, or even any five or ten year period ... global warming might make EVERY winter warmer, by a fraction of a degree per year, and might be blamed for winter not being like 1942's winter, as noted above; but people saying 'this winter is way warmer than the one I remember three years ago' in no way can blame global warming, as none of us are sensitive enough to tell a tenth of a degree's temperature.

Thus any complaint about a warm winter this year is solely attributable to weather patterns, ie El Niño or similar.

[FrostyBoy]

Don't forget, a 1 degree change is significant to nature overall. We are all connected one way or the other.

While humans can survive a wide range of temperatures, other life can be very sensitive; especially plantlife.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Global warming has no significant effect on any single year's temperature, or even any five or ten year period ... global warming might make EVERY winter warmer, by a fraction of a degree per year, and might be blamed for winter not being like 1942's winter, as noted above; but people saying 'this winter is way warmer than the one I remember three years ago' in no way can blame global warming, as none of us are sensitive enough to tell a tenth of a degree's temperature.

Thus any complaint about a warm winter this year is solely attributable to weather patterns, ie El Niño or similar.

I think you're confusing statistics with reality. The fraction of a degree that climate change is supposed to effect is determined by an averaging of temperatures over a large area for a period of time, meaning that it isn't litterally changing the temperature at a steady pace of 0.2 degrees over the span of a year, or whatever - there can be unusually hot days and unusually cold days as a result of it that wouldn't neccisarily be obvious looking at the statistics of average temperatures. Also, weather patterns such as El Niño would not be uneffected by climate change.

[Pekka]

Looks like we got 0 snow this year.. so far, nothing. Nothing in sights either. Awesome. Now it's JUST dark. At least with snow, you have darkness and show. This place is a dump.

[Flubber]

WEll the winter here is GREAT. Very little snow in Calgary ( we never get much) but the mountains have amazing snow. The skiing is excellent

[Flubber]

Oh and you Europe folks shouldn't worry about getting too WARM. I saw a piece on global warming that indicated that glacial melting in Iceland is predicted to disrupt the Gulf Stream that brings warm waters off western Europe. Instead, cooler waters would remain and Europe would on average be much colder than it is now due to the influence of the much colder water offshore

These were pretty long range predictions and somewhat uncertain but the prognosis longterm was a COLDER Europe.

[Odin]

Fargo's still unseasonably warm, it's supoosed to get up to 26F today, normally it's around 6F. tommorow it's supposed to get up to 31F!

[Zkribbler]

It's in the 80's today in Los Angeles.

I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt with no undershirt and I left my jacket at home.