This is the scientific reason Europe is incredibly cold and snowy this week

Remo Casilli/Reuters

• European countries have been gripped with extremely cold weather this week.
• The cause is a blast of frigid air from the northeast.
• It is part of a wider phenomenon linked to weather in the Arctic, which is weirdly warm this year.
• The warmth around the North Pole has allowed Arctic air to surge south, causing freezing temperatures and snow as far south as Rome.

Europe is in the grip of a cold snap, which has sent temperatures plunging below their usual late-February levels, and sparked heavy snow showers in unusually southerly spots like Rome.

The frigid temperatures, according to weather scientists, are actually the result of unseasonably warm weather elsewhere, which helped set the conditions for Europe’s cold.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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