It absolutely is an example of things to come - scenarios like this are caused by the weakened polar vortex that generally separates European weather from Arctic weather; the polar vortex has become weaker over the last years because of recent climate change / regional warming, and it is strongly expected to become even weaker in the coming decade(s), making weather like this more frequent.

It looks unusual, and I agree with you that it might be an example of the things to come. But I'd love to see an analysis of snowstorms in central Spain using extreme value theory. It might not be that infrequent. In EVT terms, the return level might not be more than a few decades.

Central Spain is quite cold. For example, when the International Brigades came to fight in the Civil War they were expecting a mild Winter, but they were shocked by pretty extreme temperatures. Luckily, everyone got prepared as next few years were even worse. In 1937, Teruel Battle was consistently fought below -20 C.

Aside from 1937, 1956 and 1971 saw pretty intense snowstorms. The 1971 one was much worse than the current storm according to the data I've seen.

Is this related to the polar vortex collapse discussed just the other day, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25713704

This isn't related to the polar vortex splitting, this is the polar vortex that has split. This is a part of the cold air mass that normally sits on the North Pole, but on top of Spain. Normally the cold arctic air spins around the north pole stably because it is cold and low pressure in the northern hemisphere winter. Warm air intruded into it, destabilized it, and it spun out into lower latitudes with corresponding intrusions of equally hot temperatures elsewhere (Tibetan plateau https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1348693028022738951/...)

I believe that this is due to the recent collapse of this year's polar vortex. The same thing happened last year and pushed large amounts of cold polar air into Europe. We are expecting a few more waves of this over the next few weeks.

In principle snow is good. It is better than rain as it will not flow quickly away. Melting snow lets more water to sink into ground and build up water table.

As someone who lives in Canada: you don't have to shovel rain.

as a former citizen of Huntington Beach CA during the 1997 El Nino storms, i'd take the snow.

I have the newspaper clipping of my grandmother being rescued from her home via dinghy by city rescue workers. Everyone I knew had their house ruined in hours after weeks of shoveling sandbags fruitlessly in front of the neighborhoods and homes.

And that was just the flood damage and personal effect , itself.

Untold amounts of environmental and biological damage occurred when sea-levels were temporarily higher than any of the sanitation and oil-recollection facilities that were in town.

That said , snow sucks, but i'd rather sweep it off my roof and winterize my plumbing than attempting to figure out the physics behind flood-proofing acres of land (almost always fruitlessly) and having to surf in sewage for years past the event.

Oh you sweet summer child... (take the summer part literally)

> i'd rather sweep it off my roof

Any significant amount of snow in LA would crush every single one of those beautiful flat modernist roofs. Snow load is no joke.

That's both very correct and very unfair, at the same time. Bravo!

/Spent an hour shoveling snow today

Snow is awesome!

Except when it all melts in spring all at once and the river(s) flood their surroundings. The ones that stupid (or corrupt or both) city planners and developers have been building on for years now. Flood plains? What's that? Oh you mean all that nice river front property that would sell for really great prices?

The bridge I used to take to work (before covid) is also affected by this. Both in the sense that the only other bridge to take from here was getting closed due to the rivers water level, meaning traffic doubled overnight and in the sense that we were mere inches away from that bridge also having to close.

Yep. One spring in Colorado the high water in a creek normally about ankle-deep took out a couple of bridges in our suburban neighborhood. They were never rebuilt--a long story.

That is one of the curious things about Colorado--creeks that are about shin deep 11 months of the year, bank full for a few days, and then subside back to shin deep.

But guess what? It isn't just in snow country that people love to build in flood plains. Have a look at Houston.

Oh, in Canada we have snow and flooding:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/opg-flood-review-1.537...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_of_the_North#Floods

The Maritimes especially gets all sort of weather.

There is a funny joke about a Bosnian in Canada, you may appreciate it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3dcn76/the_diary_of_...

They have plenty of snow in Bosnia last I checked

A few years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Sarajevo#/media/File:...

You must be fun at parties.

It is a funny joke, I'm just saying it works better with another nationality

Wasn’t this kinda expected? It’s an El Niño year I believe? Australian summer is also colder than usual I think.

EDIT: Seems like it’s a “La niña” Winter...

According to Wikipedia [0] that should not affect Europe.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ni%C3%B1a#/media/File:La_Ni...

The average minimum in Madrid in January is +3°C, and -3°C in Molina de Aragón, so no.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Madrid

https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/spain/molina-de-aragon-clim...

41 degrees in Perth the other day, it seems pretty on par on this side of the island

Wouldn't a little ice age be great right about now? Then we can burn all the oil we want and be helping stay within our temperature bounds, not blowing through them.

Not an expert by any means, but...

The issue is that this is caused by the collapse of standard weather systems.

This isn't a sign of an ice age, it's the sign of instability.