Winter temperatures
This winter was unusually cold in many places in the northern hemisphere. But perhaps more surprisingly, in other places it was very warm. The map below shows temperature anomalies with respect to the mean over the last 30 winters (click for full size):
Also shown are locations where the pressure was higher (H) and lower (L) than normal. The arrows show anomalous flow patterns (where there was an above-normal frequency of winds).
The coldest region was Russia, where the high over the Barents Sea region led to an increased frequency of northerly winds. In Europe, the westerlies were pretty much dead throughout the whole winter, with the storms heading into Southern Europe instead. The high near Iceland gave less frequent northerlies down through Baffin Bay, and even southerlies into The Labrador Sea at times. This gave very high temperatures in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic.
Needless to say, we’re trying to find out why this all happened.
