Spring? - in Bavaria it's minus 44 degrees

[P.K.]

Spring? - in Bavaria it's minus 44 degrees

1 March 2005

AUGSBURG - Meteorologists say 1 March is the start of spring, but people in the southern German state of Bavaria had a hard time believing it on Tuesday when temperatures plunged to as low as minus 44 degrees Celsius.

The Meteomedia weather office in Augsburg said it was the coldest night of 1 March ever on record in the city itself, with temperatures plunging to minus 24.1 degrees.

It was even colder in the higher elevations in the Bavarian Alps: In Oberstdorf, the thermometer read minus 25 degrees, while at the Funtensee Lake in the Berchtesgaden region, a reading of minus 44 degrees was reported. This was two degrees shy of the
all-time record minus 46 degrees there.

Meteorologists point to 1 March as the start of spring, as against the calendar date of around 21 March, the equinox.

While the southern state of Bavaria was getting the cold, the northern part of Germany got more snowfall, snarling traffic in the cities and highways.

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=17474&name=Spring%3F+-+Bavaria+in+a+minus+44+degrees+deep-freeze+

[tropicana]

March 1st 2005
COLD SNAP HITS EUROPE
Snow and fog triggered huge pile-ups and the cancellation of air and train traffic throughout Europe as temperatures fell to a 100 year low in Germany, where even fur was not enough to keep the lions warm as heaters were brought to zoos.

Temperatures also plunged to record levels as the continent experienced one of its worst cold snaps in years.

At least 25 people were injured in Germany in two pile-ups on a motorway engulfed in thick fog. Rescuers worked to cut people free from the wreckage while the motorway from Munich to Lindau in southern Germany was blocked in both directions following the crashes involving at least 100 vehicles.

A 30 car pile-up also cut off Scotland's main highway linking Glasgow to Edinburgh, but no one was injured.

Air traffic was disrupted out of Madrid and Barcelona by snow, with 180 flights grounded in Barcelona's El Prat airport alone.

Trains were forced to return to stations in Spain's Grenada and Almeria, while frozen tracks led to the cancellation of dozens of trains in Switzerland.

Ferries were also cancelled between Spain and Morocco due to strong winds in the Strait of Gibraltar, and port authorities in the Spanish enclave of Cueta on the Moroccan coast said winds had damaged several boats, including some police patrol boats.

Records were broken across the continent. The mass of snow covering the Czech Republic was "probably the largest in the last 40 years," said hydrologist Jan Danhelka.

The Swiss capital Bern registered minus 15.6 degrees celsius, its coldest ever at this time of the year since data began to be collected in 1901.

Croatia had its coldest night since 1963, with minus 21 degrees celsius in the central parts of the country.

France beat records set in 1971. It was coldest in the village of Saugues in the western region of Haute-Loire where thermometers registered minus 29.5 degrees celsius this morning.

Worst hit though was the Berchtesgaden region near Germany's border with Austria, with temperatures of minus 43.6 degrees celsius, close to the minus 45.9 degree celsius record set in 2001.

At Stuttgart airport, the mercury dropped to minus 18.6 degrees celsius - the lowest temperature in March in 105 years - while in the central German city of Hanover heating was installed in cages at the local zoo to keep lions and leopards warm.

The cold wave also cost millions of euros. Authorities in the southern Spanish city of Huelva said the cold snap has so far caused 80 million euros ($A134 million) worth of crop damage in the region, including 26 million tonnes of strawberries.

Some were sure to enjoy the weather though: children got days off in Scotland and in Spain, where 8,000 stayed home after a 40 cm snowfall stranded school buses.

-justin-