Wild Barometer
When people talk about spending Christmas at the beach, generally you think they probably live in Australia. Well, this year you can also do the same in parts of Spain. The forecast maximum temperatures will be in the low seventies in most of Spain, with occasional corners in the fifties, generally in the mountains. And it's not expected to go below freezing at any of the stations that send in data. Normally, by this time there should have been snowfalls of inches up in the mountains, but this year all the ski resorts are crying disconsolately and praying to the skies.
Today the temperature at Santiago is forecast to reach 66ºF (19ºC). The normal maximum is around 53ºF (11ºC). But it's been warmer than that this past week. And, though it went down into the upper thirties a couple of nights this month, it still hasn't gone below freezing in most of the region. Other Decembers I have found myself hudding over a newly-lit stove in the mornings, imploring it to warm up fast. This December I find myself going out in a t-shirt and a light cardigan. No jacket, no coat. People here, though, tend to dress according to the calendar. So this past week I have walked by people wearing boots, coats, and scarves. However, I assume most of those people shed by the time afternoon rolled around. Otherwise, they would have been slightly uncomfortable dressed like that in almost-seventy-degree weather.
The reason for this phenomenon has been mentioned on the news. It's due to a planetary trough unusual for the time of year. It's high pressure areas that have travelled farther north than usual and are keeping storm fronts at higher latitudes while bringing in warm air from the equator to the middle latitudes. That is probably thanks to the perturbance of weather patterns by a strong El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific, which is also bringing mild weather to eastern North America. While it may be a recurrent happening in world weather, this year it's reaching new extremes. Yet further evidence that despite thinking we know this world we inhabit, there is still much more to learn. Unfortunately, it seems we are changing it before we learn enough about it.
Maybe at Christmas eighty years hence we'll be dipping our feet at the beach which has crept to our doors and wondering what a white Christmas used to be like.
Today the temperature at Santiago is forecast to reach 66ºF (19ºC). The normal maximum is around 53ºF (11ºC). But it's been warmer than that this past week. And, though it went down into the upper thirties a couple of nights this month, it still hasn't gone below freezing in most of the region. Other Decembers I have found myself hudding over a newly-lit stove in the mornings, imploring it to warm up fast. This December I find myself going out in a t-shirt and a light cardigan. No jacket, no coat. People here, though, tend to dress according to the calendar. So this past week I have walked by people wearing boots, coats, and scarves. However, I assume most of those people shed by the time afternoon rolled around. Otherwise, they would have been slightly uncomfortable dressed like that in almost-seventy-degree weather.
The reason for this phenomenon has been mentioned on the news. It's due to a planetary trough unusual for the time of year. It's high pressure areas that have travelled farther north than usual and are keeping storm fronts at higher latitudes while bringing in warm air from the equator to the middle latitudes. That is probably thanks to the perturbance of weather patterns by a strong El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific, which is also bringing mild weather to eastern North America. While it may be a recurrent happening in world weather, this year it's reaching new extremes. Yet further evidence that despite thinking we know this world we inhabit, there is still much more to learn. Unfortunately, it seems we are changing it before we learn enough about it.
Maybe at Christmas eighty years hence we'll be dipping our feet at the beach which has crept to our doors and wondering what a white Christmas used to be like.
Comments
Post a Comment