Cold Snap
Today, for the first time in over a week, the only clouds are thin, high streaks in the vivid blue sky that show no threat. The air is clear and you can almost think your eyesight has grown sharp, considering how far into the distance you can see everything clearly. However, we are in February and that sharpness has a price - cold.
Finally winter has arrived, just in time for it to leave. Places in northern Spain that usually get their first snowfall in December got it in February this year. Ski resorts finally have snow to sell, instead of just fresh mountain air. Kids who live in mountainous areas finally have a snow day as snowplows do their work. Drivers dust off their skills at adjusting tire chains to cross mountain passes. The weather has turned seasonable after a fall-cum-spring that had everything flowering early.
But that's it, seasonable. Temperatures here on the Galician coast have fallen to around freezing at night and rise into the upper forties during the sun-blessed day. Not like sixty years ago. Not like the great freeze of 1956.
That winter of 1955-1956 was much like this one. Fall never really turned into winter anywhere on the peninsula. Fruit trees and plants in general flowered early, foretelling an early harvest for the almond growers and olive gatherers. Into January there were parts of Spain where a coat wasn't needed, and people had started to put away their winter clothes, thinking the benign climate would continue into spring when the threat of frosts would disappear. But between the first and second of February a mass of air straight from the Siberian steppes insinuated itself into western Europe, flowing icy cold, though dry, straight into the Iberian peninsula.
It chilled bones all over Europe. In Turin it reached -20ºC/-4ºF; Paris went down to -11ºC/12ºF. In Spain the coldest recorded at a weather station was -32ºC/-26ºF at Lago Estany in Lleida. But Madrid plummeted to -9ºC/16ºF and Pamplona to -15ºC/5ºF. Balmy Alicante on the Mediterranean fell to -4ºC/24ºF. But up in the Pyrenees, where the highest peak rises over three thousand meters, it was a gelid -50ºc/-58ºF.
It lasted, with some ups and downs on the thermometer, almost the entire month. It was generally dry, but in areas where the wind picked up moisture from travelling over water, it snowed. In the port city of Palma de Mallorca they accumulated 20 centimeters. On the island of Ibiza, 15. Towards the end of the cold snap, the air was coming from the Arctic, and was not quite as cold, but it had more moisture. It snowed all along the very coast of the Bay of Biscay, down to the beaches. In the northern city of Burgos, it snowed for seventeen consecutive days and they accumulated over a meter of snow. And along the coast the temperatures immediately froze the seawater that slapped against everything, the waves driven by the winds. Phantasmagoric ice statues were created from rocks, lamp posts, seawalls. The cold lasted into the beginning of March, but its intensity decreased sharply after that. However, in some places where it had snowed enough, the snow remained until May. That's only common on the highest peaks, normally.
At that time, the economic impact was great. Many places lost electricity. Water mains burst. Factories that depended on electricity couldn't work for days on end. People who had jobs in the open air, such as construction workers, had to stop. The water they used would freeze practically while they were using it and it was just too cold to work. And that at a time when unemployment benefits had yet to be introduced. Agriculture also suffered. Centenarian olive trees that had just been pruned died and had to be pulled out. Entire orange groves in Valencia died. Produce that had just been planted froze and had to be replanted. Farm animals died. And all over Europe over a thousand people died that month.
Today forty-one provinces of Spain are on alert for cold weather, snow, wind, and rain. While it's colder than it's been all winter, it's not as cold as it was that year. But spring has decided to retreat to its cocoon, after taunting us into thinking we weren't going to shiver this year.
Finally winter has arrived, just in time for it to leave. Places in northern Spain that usually get their first snowfall in December got it in February this year. Ski resorts finally have snow to sell, instead of just fresh mountain air. Kids who live in mountainous areas finally have a snow day as snowplows do their work. Drivers dust off their skills at adjusting tire chains to cross mountain passes. The weather has turned seasonable after a fall-cum-spring that had everything flowering early.
But that's it, seasonable. Temperatures here on the Galician coast have fallen to around freezing at night and rise into the upper forties during the sun-blessed day. Not like sixty years ago. Not like the great freeze of 1956.
That winter of 1955-1956 was much like this one. Fall never really turned into winter anywhere on the peninsula. Fruit trees and plants in general flowered early, foretelling an early harvest for the almond growers and olive gatherers. Into January there were parts of Spain where a coat wasn't needed, and people had started to put away their winter clothes, thinking the benign climate would continue into spring when the threat of frosts would disappear. But between the first and second of February a mass of air straight from the Siberian steppes insinuated itself into western Europe, flowing icy cold, though dry, straight into the Iberian peninsula.
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| A shipbuilders' in Girona. |
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| Snow in Palma de Mallorca. |
At that time, the economic impact was great. Many places lost electricity. Water mains burst. Factories that depended on electricity couldn't work for days on end. People who had jobs in the open air, such as construction workers, had to stop. The water they used would freeze practically while they were using it and it was just too cold to work. And that at a time when unemployment benefits had yet to be introduced. Agriculture also suffered. Centenarian olive trees that had just been pruned died and had to be pulled out. Entire orange groves in Valencia died. Produce that had just been planted froze and had to be replanted. Farm animals died. And all over Europe over a thousand people died that month.
Today forty-one provinces of Spain are on alert for cold weather, snow, wind, and rain. While it's colder than it's been all winter, it's not as cold as it was that year. But spring has decided to retreat to its cocoon, after taunting us into thinking we weren't going to shiver this year.
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| Accumulated snow in Vitoria. |
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