Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Interesting to see that Europe is capable of matching much of the eastern US in severe cold once in a while.
Those Northern Italy snow photos are spectacular. Is there some topographic reason why those areas got so much snow?
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It's like lake effect snow as far as I can gather: cold air crossing the warmer Adriatic Sea, then when it hits land a large part of the Italian east coast is only a few km away from towns at 1000' or more (I've been to Urbino [on a boiling hot summer's day, mind] and it is quite steep, being at the foot of the Apennine mountain range, and there are road signs up on the steeper roads warning that they can be dangerous in ice/snow), so I don't think heavy snowfalls are as unusual there as near Rome by the west coast, though I suspect getting repeated heavy snow like that doesn't happen too often.
Interesting to see how just a few dozen miles of sea insulates us yet again from the worst of whatever's going on on the continent - Brussels getting 14 consecutive ice days contrasts with us about 180 miles away only getting one and central London not getting any.