Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

Hallo all and belated happy new year wishes!

A couple of severe weather episodes took place in Greece since Christmas. The first one brought snowfalls down to sea level, mainly in eastern and central continental Greece and the northern, and eastern Aegean islands, as well as Crete. Under normal circumstances, I would have focussed my post on that event since it did bring a 1-inch snow cover in Athens and I was lucky enough to experience it. The low was giving one trough after the other, as is usually the case when such a low makes its way slowly eastwards over the southern Dodecanese and into Turkey or the eastern Mediterranean, so Athens did see snow falling on a couple of occasions. Snow covers were slightly more severe and temperature did fall into the minus teens in other areas, but I won't bore you with all that, because, after that, January happened.

Many of you may have seen the trough that made its way over eastern Europe and reached SE Europe on January 5. Very cold air was plunged into the Balkans and well into Greece after that. Many continental areas have been experiencing ice days ever since, although tomorrow shouldn't be an ice day for any coastal area -finally. The all-time temperaure records were not broken, but a few interesting things happened:
- some areas are experiencing a 4th consecutive ice day.
- the sea froze by the coast in some areas (admittedly, close to river mouths). Rivers and lakes had already frozen in northern and northwestern continental areas since December.
- the only areas that saw no frost were some coastal areas in the Dodecanese islands and the very east coastal areas of Crete. Most of the rest of the country saw frost, at least for a couple of days.
- it snowed practically everywhere, in waves, even in areas where it hardly ever snows like the Ionian coastal areas. From the main low and its frontal activity, a secondary surface low, troughs, zones of convergence backed up by the "Aegean lake" effect, any possible mechanism depending on the area.. It did not snow (but there were wintry showers) in some coastal areas of the Dodecanese only. Pictures with beaches covered in snow were sent around from around the country apart from the Dodecanese, to my knowledge. Athens did spend her night in the snow and woke up dressed in white today.
- some mountainous areas saw temperatures down to -20C and bigger towns saw temperatures down to roughly -19C. Tonight is also very cold and frosty and temperatures in the regions of Western Macedonia and Thessaly are quickly dropping below -17C right now. A couple of days ago, Thessaloniki was reporting -9C and high winds right by the sea. Sea smoke evident around the Aegean coastline from Thrace down to the Peloponnese and Crete.
- a surface low from the Libyan coasts made its way northeastwards and gave most continental areas snow again last evening and overnight yesterday. It did, though, bring milder air in to eastern coastal areas.
- some lying areas in the island of Evia, a well-known island for the ridiculous amounts of snow it receives from the Aegean, are now lying under roughly 2m of snow; no idea what's going on in the mountains there.

All the best,
Yannis, NW London

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

"Yannis" wrote in message
...
Hallo all and belated happy new year wishes!

A couple of severe weather episodes took place in Greece since Christmas.
The first one brought snowfalls down to sea level, mainly in eastern and
central continental Greece and the northern, and eastern Aegean islands, as
well as Crete. Under normal circumstances, I would have focussed my post on
that event since it did bring a 1-inch snow cover in Athens and I was lucky
enough to experience it. The low was giving one trough after the other, as
is usually the case when such a low makes its way slowly eastwards over the
southern Dodecanese and into Turkey or the eastern Mediterranean, so Athens
did see snow falling on a couple of occasions. Snow covers were slightly
more severe and temperature did fall into the minus teens in other areas,
but I won't bore you with all that, because, after that, January happened.

Many of you may have seen the trough that made its way over eastern Europe
and reached SE Europe on January 5. Very cold air was plunged into the
Balkans and well into Greece after that. Many continental areas have been
experiencing ice days ever since, although tomorrow shouldn't be an ice day
for any coastal area -finally. The all-time temperaure records were not
broken, but a few interesting things happened:
- some areas are experiencing a 4th consecutive ice day.
- the sea froze by the coast in some areas (admittedly, close to river
mouths). Rivers and lakes had already frozen in northern and northwestern
continental areas since December.
- the only areas that saw no frost were some coastal areas in the Dodecanese
islands and the very east coastal areas of Crete. Most of the rest of the
country saw frost, at least for a couple of days.
- it snowed practically everywhere, in waves, even in areas where it hardly
ever snows like the Ionian coastal areas. From the main low and its frontal
activity, a secondary surface low, troughs, zones of convergence backed up
by the "Aegean lake" effect, any possible mechanism depending on the area.
It did not snow (but there were wintry showers) in some coastal areas of the
Dodecanese only. Pictures with beaches covered in snow were sent around from
around the country apart from the Dodecanese, to my knowledge. Athens did
spend her night in the snow and woke up dressed in white today.
- some mountainous areas saw temperatures down to -20C and bigger towns saw
temperatures down to roughly -19C. Tonight is also very cold and frosty and
temperatures in the regions of Western Macedonia and Thessaly are quickly
dropping below -17C right now. A couple of days ago, Thessaloniki was
reporting -9C and high winds right by the sea. Sea smoke evident around the
Aegean coastline from Thrace down to the Peloponnese and Crete.
- a surface low from the Libyan coasts made its way northeastwards and gave
most continental areas snow again last evening and overnight yesterday. It
did, though, bring milder air in to eastern coastal areas.
- some lying areas in the island of Evia, a well-known island for the
ridiculous amounts of snow it receives from the Aegean, are now lying under
roughly 2m of snow; no idea what's going on in the mountains there.

All the best,
Yannis, NW London
==============

Thanks Yannis, most interesting.

Will
--
" Some sects believe that the world was created 5000 years ago. Another sect
believes that it was created in 1910 "
http://www.lyneside.demon.co.uk/Hayt...antage_Pro.htm
Will Hand (Haytor, Devon, 1017 feet asl)
---------------------------------------------

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

Op dinsdag 10 januari 2017 22:37:12 UTC+1 schreef Yannis:
Hallo all and belated happy new year wishes!
A couple of severe weather episodes took place in Greece since Christmas.

Good to see you still in touch Yannis, and Happy New Year to you as well !

Dreadful situation for some of the refugees caught in the freezing weather on the Aegean islands https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ent-under-fire

Colin Youngs
Brussels

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

In message ,
Yannis writes
Hallo all and belated happy new year wishes!

A Happy New Year to you too, Yannis! It's an unexpected pleasure to hear
from you again.

snip very interesting report

We've heard quite a lot in the media about the current extremely cold
spell over Greece and a great swathe of central and Eastern Europe. I
don't remember hearing much about your earlier cold spell, though.


All the best,
Yannis, NW London

What are you doing in London? Have you had to take refuge there to get
away from the severe weather? :)
--
John Hall
"One can certainly imagine the myriad of uses
for a hand-held iguana maker"
Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher!)

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

On Tuesday, 10 January 2017 22:08:45 UTC, John Hall wrote:
What are you doing in London? Have you had to take refuge there to get
away from the severe weather? :)
--
John Hall

Hey John :)
I work for Public Health England since a couple of years so I'm London based these days :)

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

On Tuesday, 10 January 2017 21:56:49 UTC, Colin Youngs wrote:
Dreadful situation for some of the refugees caught in the freezing weather on the Aegean islands https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ent-under-fire

Colin Youngs
Brussels

Hey Colin,
That's the down side of any cold weather event I guess, it's a sad story no matter how one looks at it.

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

On 10/01/2017 22:25, Yannis wrote:
On Tuesday, 10 January 2017 22:08:45 UTC, John Hall wrote:
What are you doing in London? Have you had to take refuge there to get
away from the severe weather? :)
--
John Hall

Hey John :)
I work for Public Health England since a couple of years so I'm London based these days :)

----------------------------------------------------------
Good to hear from you Yannis. Then you saw quite a bit of it on our main
News Channels! I expect you get fed up with our Mediterranean winter
climate ;-)
Dave

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Greece: extreme weather over the last weeks
 

On Tuesday, 10 January 2017 23:18:04 UTC, Dave Cornwell wrote:

----------------------------------------------------------
Good to hear from you Yannis. Then you saw quite a bit of it on our main
News Channels! I expect you get fed up with our Mediterranean winter
climate ;-)
Dave

Well here's hope for Thursday, right? :)