Free Republic

The first snow of the season has fallen in northern Sweden, but most of the country still remains flake-free. The snowfall came on Monday evening and in the early hours of Tuesday at the Låktatjåkko ski lodge, Sweden's highest mountain station at 1,228 metres above sea level. “We had a lot of snow last winter. It was a good season for skiing,” station attendant Henrietta Backman told regional newspaper Norrbottens-kuriren. There are still large patches of snow left over from last winter in the area, and it is not unusual for the first snow of the new season to fall...

June 1st means summer, right? Oh wait — this is Sweden after all. Bring on the snow and hail! Last month in Sweden was a month of extreme weather. The far northern parts of Norrland saw record-low temperatures, the lowest since 1968 according to preliminary figures from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). So surely, summer should be here by now? Well, think again — this is Sweden, after all. On June 1st, snow was falling over the small village of Kåbdalis in the northern county of Norrbotten. […] In the arctic mining town of Kiruna, also in the...

At least one of the People’s Climate March rallies scheduled for Saturday in Colorado was canceled as a result of a major snowstorm, providing climate skeptics with a good chuckle. The Colorado Springs march, one of 12 slated to take place in Colorado, was canceled late Friday after heavy snow began falling across the Front Range, with more than a foot accumulating in some areas, as reported by Western Wire. “Sometimes Mother Nature throws you a curveball!” said the Colorado Springs Council for Justice in a Friday post 350 Colorado Springs. “We know we aren’t in the business of risking...

Say goodbye to so-called "global warming." If the huge amounts of snowfall that buried the Sierra this past winter continue, we will soon witness the comeback of Tahoe glacier This is not as far-fetched as you may think. In fact, if history is any guide it is inevitable. Not only inevitable, the process may have already begun. California’s Squaw Valley ski resort, just west of Lake Tahoe, has been buried beneath more than 58 feet of snowfall this season. That’s enough snow to completely cover a five-story building.

The alpine region of southern New South Wales has received a big blast of snow — months ahead of the official start to the ski season. Visitors and staff at ski resorts in the Snowy Mountains fell asleep last night in Autumn and woke up in what looked like the dead of winter. ...

Stay Safe Freepers !!

Between October 2016 and February 2017, California averaged 27.81 inches of precipitation, the highest average since such records began being kept in 1895, according to data released Wednesday by the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

From the “California is in a permanent drought due to climate change – because we said so” department comes this good news from NASA, CA DWR, and NOAA From NASA:Abundant Snowpack Blankets the Sierra NevadaMarch 3, 2017 Snowpack on the Sierra Nevada provides one-third of the water consumed by California citizens, farmers, and businesses each year. For the first time in at least five years, there should be more than enough of it.According to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the water stored as snow in the Sierra Nevada range was 185 percent of the long-term average for the...

The blizzard in Hawaii and high levels of precipitation in California contrast sharply with the low snow levels across much of the rest of the country in 2017. It's been a strange year for weather so far, and a recent series of events has confounded expectations. On Tuesday and Wednesday, a blizzard hit mountaintops on Hawaii's Big Island. Most of the snow fell overnight, blanketing the summit of Mauna Kea with eight inches and making the road to the summit impassable. In California, meanwhile, record levels of rain and snow look set to lift much of the state out of...

Well here’s something you don’t see every day in the Emirates. This past weekend, we were dealt with some unusual weather with high winds, cold temperatures, and drops of rain appearing. However, up in Jebal Jais in Ras Al Khaimah, something else happened. Temperatures became so low that the emirate actually saw snow. With temperatures dipping to -1.1 degrees Celsius, could we blame those in the area for not wanting to have a little fun? In a series of tweets posted on February 3, we are perhaps introduced to the UAE’s most adorable snowman, waving a UAE flag with a...

A 4-mile section of Highway 89 on either side of Emerald Bay remains closed, with some sections buried in up to 30 feet of snow, according to the California Department of Transportation. Caltrans maintenance crews are working to clear the highway, but with more storms expected this week, the highway won’t reopen until an extended period of dry weather allows workers to safely clear the area of snow and debris, according to a Caltrans news release. Motorists traveling between the south shore of Lake Tahoe and the north or west shore will have to use Highway 50 and Highway 28....

Everyone knows of the giant storm that is burying the Sierras. This short video was taken on frozen Highway 80 near Donner Pass

Remembering your childhood The first snow of 2017 finally arrived; a couple of inches covered the ground early before sunrise, turning our world into a powdery-white winter wonderland. The woods were unusually quiet and the animals disappeared with the exception of the resident fox. She ran from the back bushes and left a trail of swirling dry snow disturbed by her bushy tail. My two squirrels were nowhere to be seen.

I-70 is CLOSED both directions on Vail Pass due to an avalanche across the Interstate.

ierra travelers trapped by back-to-back storms that dropped more than 2 feet of snow have a brief window to pass before the arrival of a weather system Saturday so wet forecasters are calling it an "atmospheric river." Up to 12 inches of rain below 8,500 feet is expected, and massive amounts of snow — up to 6 feet — above that elevation. A fifth, colder storm two days behind will drop yet more heavy snow. “It’s a once-in-10-year event,” said Zach Tolby, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno. “It’s the strongest storm we’ve seen in a long...

For the first time in 40 years, snow has fallen on the Sahara Desert, the Independent reported Wednesday. […] “In his images [Karim Bouchetat, an amateur photographer who captured images of the snow on Monday], a thin layer of snow rests on deep orange dunes, where he said it stayed for about a day, and forms whirling patterns where the slopes are too steep for it to settle. Snow was reportedly last seen in Ain Sefra in 1979, when a half-hour snowstorm stopped traffic,” the Independent stated in its article. …

When you hear people complaining about Comcast, it’s normally something to do with bad service or price hikes. But this repair tech found a whole new way to make people mad about Comcast: park your truck right over a blind hill in the middle of a snowstorm, cause multiple cars to bail into a ditch, then drive off while blaming everyone else. The video shows a pair of Comcast trucks carrying out repairs along a 40mph road in a rural area, in the middle of a snowstorm. Where the trucks are stopped is just over a blind hill, so the...

Comcast has issued a statement apologizing for this week’s incident. “When I watched this video I was very concerned by what I saw,” says Ed Marchetti, SVP of Technical Operations, Comcast Cable, in a statement emailed to Consumerist. “Our employees should always protect people and treat them with respect no matter what the situation. Safety matters most – especially in dangerous weather conditions like this. “We are actively investigating what happened when our technicians were on site to restore services during an outage and we will reach out to those who were impacted by this incident. “Within the next 24-48...

How do we explain the deep snow in Hawaii to PC Thinkers? Some ideas: All of that global warming which bulled its way into the Arctic (which by now must be as hot as the Sahara) drove the cold air fleeing before it all the way to Hawaii. Hillary supporters all promised each other, "It'll be a Cold Day in Hawaii before Trump is President!!" And it goes without saying they're always right. Mother Nature, having heard the catastrophic news of Trump's Selection, is desperately lashing out in one last Herculean attempt to save life on the planet from being...

Story Highlights Heavy snow is blanketing the slopes of Hawaii's peaks. Snow, there, is not as unusual as it sounds. It can even happen in summer. Yes, it's snowing in Hawaii, but don't rush to cancel your vacation if you're looking to escape colder weather. This snow is falling over the peaks of the Big Island of Hawaii, including Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Big Island's volcanic peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa through late Sunday night. The warning says that an additional 6 to 12 inches...