The snowstorm in Madrid has delighted its residents. Saturday January 9, 2021, they danced happily in the city center. A musical announcement of the cold wave that will sweep across Europe.
Snowball battles, crowd to dance The Macarena in the Puerta del Sol square, in the city center … The reactions were happy following the arrival of snow in Madrid. Several dozen centimeters of snow fell following the passage of storm Filomena, Friday January 8, 2021, over the Iberian capital. This snowpack literally paralyzed the city, as well as all of Castile: garbage collection, buses, blocked motorists … Even Madrid airport had to close. For almost 50 years, Spain had not experienced such weather. A distant memory for other big cities, snow is going to make its comeback.
Discover the snow dance
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Coming from the North Pole, the cold wave sweeps over Europe
Snow has become a rare commodity over the years. The winters in Europe are currently quite mild. But with global warming, the climate is changing. A "sudden stratospheric warming" (also known under the name of Sudden Stratospheric Warming, or SSW) would be the explanation of these meteorological disturbances that we see from time to time. "To put it simply, the polar vortex is a low pressure area which forms in the stratosphere at the level of the poles. It is bordered by strong winds: the stratospheric jet", Explain the meteocontact site. As temperatures rise in the skies and at the lower poles, wind pressure decreases and can even reverse. The cold air is no longer retained and it can mix with the jet stream which descends to Europe. And this stratosphere has gained 50 ° C in a few days since the beginning of January 2021.
A peak of heat in the higher spheres which, on the land side, could be at the origin of this cold winter which falls on Europe, announces Futura-Sciences. "Two-thirds of the sudden stratospheric warming observed in the North Pole region has a significant impact on surface weather conditions at our latitudes", explains Richard Hall, researcher at the University of Bristol (United Kingdom), in a press release. With regard to France, according to MétéoFrance, after a cold start to the year "Warm weather will start on Tuesday with the arrival of a disturbance temporarily bringing snow to the plains in the North-East and the Center-East with significant accumulations above 500 m."