So sickening to see how mild over Scandi to very cold over SE Europe and Med regions.   I see very poor snow cover over Santa Claus this winter often just dusting to few cm deep not the severeal feet we used to hear about over Lapland, they will see less cold temps this week just tad below Nicosia maxes temps expected.  Lapland normally in several feet deep peaking in Feb/March but it now dusting to few cms so will be gone very soon next month.  

I wonder what Tally's friends update who went to Cyprus to find it the coldest they ever had than here.

They're flying out on Fri 28th apparently so will prob warm up by then!

But from their children who work out there - yes it is very cold there, they are not in Nicosia but said it's +5c by day. Looking at current temperatures it is +2c in Nicosia - the capital of Cyprus and keep in mind Cyprus is surrounded by sea too. Even looking at cities in Turkey It's currently -3c in Antalya on the southern coastal tip of Turkey, Dalaman down to 0c and Izmir down to -3c. - All coastal regions. Even colder inland -10c in Ankara the capital of Turkey and -3c in Istanbul. 

Friends of mind were in Transylvania and apparently got down to -20c and -16c in Bucharest city earlier this morning. Not a record breaker but certainly the coldest it's been there in many years. SO the long and short is - (as ever!) there is cold airmass around just never for the UK and as always is the case. - the beast is in the south east!! 

If I was in Nicosia I will defo get top of the range weather station and go live with other live stations now appearing all over Greek side.  Here fat chance to set up here with no variation and correct seasonal weather and refuse to associate with meto as well don’t like their tone and obsessed night time temps to portraying we are warming up so much when in reality is not at daytime.  We used have more milder winters in the recent past than now.  

This very cold spell turn out to be very dry one just like UK northerly cold spells which lead to very cold night at end of cold spell.  

Do people have central heating  or fire places there? I would doubt it. I assume they are having to use electric heaters?

They probably just use their air-con - it'll be widespread out there!

Yes they do but once off quickly get cold and even with heating on you can feel the coldness ready to pounce once it turn off.  We used electric bar heaters 2 of them, 1 oil filled radiator and one Krup fan heater for first 2 property have no heating while 3rd have central heating.

We currently have a tropical cyclone called Alfred sitting off the SE corner of Queensland and crossing into northern NSW. While it is not unprecedented for a TC to be so far south it is highly unusual. The last TC direct hit in the Brisbane area / NSW was back in 1954 by an unnamed TC as no naming then perhaps. There were TC VERY close to the SE QLD coast and NSW in 1974 and 1990 but I understand that this will be the first crossing since the 50’s.

Alfred is currently sitting as a cat2 cyclone and is expected to make landfall as such….although the BOM are not entirely ruling out an intensification to cat3 as some unusual warm waters. The Tasman sea up the east coast of Australia has been unusually warm for a while now, usually a TC would be very hard to sustain so far south.

Why is this so bad…well….cyclones of greater strength TC’s will hit far North Queensland, Northern Territory and northern WA most years but following the cyclone Tracy disaster in 1975 infrastructure over the top end is much more better equipped to sustain them and the natural environment is also kind of better adapted of course being in the monsoon region, flooding rains are common every year. However, SE Queensland containing one of the biggest cities in Australia and NSW just aren’t as well prepared for cyclones, making this more dangerous.

For example in SE QLD you have these canal estates that are homes basically build like Venice, you drive way is a man made sea inlet and these could be at major risk from a storm surge.

Landfall is due maybe around Friday and I just don’t know how bad this will be but the potential is there for it to be a major news breaking event worldwide…..or maybe not….maybe they will get lucky and not as bad as expected. Right now…it looks bad.

Good luck to him, the Byron area most definitely in the firing line..

Latest model updates have the TC stalling just offshore and not crossing until Saturday, which is a worry. Possibly over 1000mm of rain from Brisbane south and over the NSW border due to slow moving rain bands. Possible intensification also.

It would be better if Alfred just crossed land quickly and down graded rapidly!

Each run brings a slight variation though.

https://news.sky.com/story/flash-floods-in-gran-canaria-sweep-cars-into-sea-13321931 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14458745/Now-Canary-Islands-hit-SNOW-raging-floods-swept-holiday-hotspots-video-shows-woman-rescued-moments-car-washed-away.html 

When we were on holiday in Lanzarote in 2002, we were told that snowfall on Tenerife itself was sufficiently rare that the local school had arranged an inter-island excursion so the kids could experience snow. In a few years' time, Sussex schools will be organising trips to the Pennines or further north for the same reason.

Oddly tropical looking storm out there atm 🤔

https://x.com/BackpirchCrew/status/1897471684191342619 

400mm rain in one day being about 1/3 annual rainfall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1vd7xywpo 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cly1nkdplkeo 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/04/greece-aegean-islands-flash-floods-mud-rainfall-easter-tourists 

"Unsustainable irrigation and drought have emptied nearly all of the Aral Sea’s water since the 1960s, causing changes extending all the way down to Earth’s upper mantle, the layer beneath the planet’s crust. This is probably the deepest recorded example of human activity changing the solid inner Earth...

The Aral Sea in central Asia was once one of the world’s largest bodies of water, covering almost 70,000 square kilometres. But Soviet irrigation programmes starting in the 1960s, as well as later droughts, emptied the sea. By 2018, it had shrunk by almost 90 per cent and lost around 1000 cubic kilometres of water."

Earth's upper mantle is revealing the deepest effect of human activity

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2475234-earths-upper-mantle-is-revealing-the-deepest-effect-of-human-activity/ 

https://kristinavaraksina.com/539-2/ 

The Sea Tomorrow  was a title that caught my atterntion  a few years back. Sticks with you.

Kristina Varaksina has the rare ability to capture someones soul in an image. Her other work is worth a viewing.

I only ever did that once for one single photo in Palawan. My co workers called the image a National Geographic picture.

The negatives were either lost or eaten by humidity and the print no more. Unless the subject still has a picture.

Spectacular avalanche footage

The Canaries are particularly vulnerable to floods when hit with intense rain, as their dry climate and volcanic rock mean the ground does not absorb large volumes of water well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdz15q2931o 

Weather warnings in force for much of Spain until Tuesday

https://www.thelocal.fr/20250417/french-alps-hit-by-heavy-snowfall-leaving-roads-and-ski-resorts-blocked 

EDIT: this site reports 1.5m in Tignes

https://www.inthesnow.com/amazing-snowfall-sets-up-alps-for-end-of-season-powder-paradise/ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/6183235