Historic Cold In Cuba; Records Fall Across India, Pakistan And Iran, As Gas Shortages Hit; Heavy Snow Transforms European Landscapes; + 33 Feet And Counting: California Town Buried In Snow

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Historic Cold In Cuba

Record-breaking chills are currently sweeping Cuba.

On Monday, a low of 1.5C (34.7F) was registered at Indio Hatuey; just 0.9C from Cuba’s official all-time low set in 1935.

Record cold has also swept the eastern town of Guantanamo: the 9.9C (49.8F) it logged (at the airport) is the locale’s lowest temperature ever recorded; while a new record low, of 7.4C (45.3F), was also observed at La Jiquima.

Other fallen benchmarks are listed below, courtesy of INSMET Cuba:


Updated INSMET data reveals temperatures have tumbled even lower.

Bainoa actually dropped to 3.1C, with records also falling in Colon and Santo Domingo, to name just two others.

While we’re in the Caribbean, the December temperature data is in for Barbados.

According to the Barbados Meteorological Service, last month had an average temperature of 25.6C (78.1F), which is a substantial 1.2C below the multidecadal norm.

Also, the year 2022 (as a whole) finished -0.45C below normal.


Records Fall Across India, Pakistan and Iran, As Gas Shortages Hit

India

Starting in India, extreme ‘cold wave’ conditions are enduring across the Northern plains–in particular.

Many locales have suffered record low temperatures for a third day in a row, as per IMD data, which is impacting farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan –to name just three regions– where widespread frosts have been ravaging crops:


With regards to the records, while daily and monthly lows are falling, all-time benchmarks are also being challenged, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

This morning (Jan 17), Alwar logged -0.5C (31.1F), which is just 0.3C from the locale’s coldest temperature ever recorded.

Likewise in Fatehpur, Rajasthan, the -3.7C (25.3F) suffered on Jan 16 is one of the city’s lowest readings in history.

Churu’s -2.7C (27.1F), Hisar’s -1.3C (29.7F), Gurgaon’s 0.1C (32.2F), Narnaul’s 1.5C (34.7F), and Rohtak’s 1.8C (35.2F) are also worth noting, as is Delhi’s -0.8C (30.6F) –set at the historic Safdarjung station– which isn’t far off the state’s all-time low set in 1935.

@LiveWxIndia
@LiveWxIndia


India has been no stranger to extreme cold in recent years, with official IMD data confirming that the country is cooling. Even the country’s great sprawling metropolises, such as Delhi with its ignored urban heat island effect, has seen decreasing temps: “there has been a 1.6-fold increase in cold wave days in India in the last decade,” so says the IMD.

To combat its decreasing temperatures/increasing demand, India is boosting its coal imports. Severe cold towards the end of December triggered sudden surges in electricity usage which resulted in blackouts. It also made forecasting coal and power requirements difficult.

Record domestic output has helped, but stocks are still far below federal guidelines that recommend at least 24 days’ buffer supply: “Even now, about 31% of the total coal-based capacity is facing critical coal shortages,” said Abhishek Rakshit, a Senior Research Analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

As a result, India will have to increase imports by 50-60% in April-December 2023, according to Hetal Gandhi, Director of Research at CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics, if they are to “avert a possible crisis”.


Pakistan

Looking to neighboring Pakistan, polar air has descended into southern regions where temperature drops this severe are considered rare. Even across Sindh province, which is considered Pakistan’s warmest region, frosts have been reported.

The southern coastal city of Karachi has endured some of its coldest temperatures ever. A station at Jinnah Terminal registered 4.3C (39.7F), reports the Pakistan Met Office; although several suburban areas plunged far lower, according to Pak Weather (Pakistan’s private automated weather station network), with Pak posting photos of rare frosts across the city’s outskirts.

“Pak Weather team already recorded 0.7C through highly calibrated and accurate devices at Malir Cantt region [of Karachi]”, the network tweeted, with temperatures forecast to continuing falling throughout the week, on course to challenge the city’s all-time record low of 0C (32F) observed during the January of 1934, according to Met data.

Karachi residents say this winter season has been exceptionally cold, but has been made even tougher by natural gas shortages and load-shedding. There is simply no gas to cook, complain the locals. Even at times city authorities say the gas flow –i.e. at the three promised meal times of breakfast, lunch, and dinner– it often isn’t there, and people are suffering.

Looking ahead, Pakistan’s Meteorological Department (PMD) says the country’s cold wave will persist: “Mainly cold and dry weather is expected in most parts, while very cold in Balochistan, upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, and Gilgit Baltistan.”

Residents of Balochistan, including Quetta city, have watched their thermometers plummet below -10C (14F) this week, which has frozen and burst water pipes, compounding the wintry misery.


Iran

More than a hundred-thousand Iranians were also left without gas to heat their homes over the weekend, just as historically-frigid conditions engulfed the country, the state broadcaster reported.

Gas deliveries were cut to some 90,000 residential users in the north-eastern province of Razavi Khorasan overnight Saturday. Supplies were also disrupted in at least four other northern provinces and several districts.

Officials have confirmed that the country is experiencing “freezing temperatures unseen in the last decade, which has driven demand for the heating fuel to record highs.”

Cooling has been the story of the past few years in this part of the world, yet authorities, perhaps hamstrung by green ideals and fairytales of ever-rising temperatures, have failed to prepare.

As I reported last year (over at electroverse.net–site now mysteriously down), Iran was forced to cut the gas supply to its neighbor Turkey in order to secure its own domestic supply as bone-chilling lows and feet of snows descended across the Middle East.

This year, Iran –a gas-rich nation– is reducing its exports to Iraq, rather than Turkey (Erdoğan likely cut a deal).

Iraq is heavily dependent on Iranian gas to operate its power plants.

Since early this month, Iran has reduced its natural gas exports to Iraq to about 7 million cubic meters per day, said Iraqi Electricity Ministry spokesman Ahmed Mousa: “We need between 30 to 50 million cubic meters a day from Iran … Therefore, the reduction has affected our ability to meet the demand and has increased power outages across the country.”

Iraq has lost some 5,000 megawatts from its national grid, which produces about 16,000MW.

As a result, the country’s Electricity Minister is scheduled to visit Tehran this week to ‘discuss’ the issue.

https://twitter.com/MadeinTehran/status/1614779807056674816


Although gas-rich, Iran has itself been cut off, by Turkmenistan to the north.

Iran relies on Turkmenistani deliveries to supply its northern regions: “We are gas independent,” said Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owjibut, “[but] we are at the peak of gas consumption. Our first priorities are domestic, so sustainable consumption is required.”

Consumption cutting measures have included the closure of schools, state-run offices and privately owned businesses across Tehran province. Owjibut has also called on people to avoid travel to the city of Mashhad, home to Iran’s holiest pilgrimage shrine.

Heavy snow has also impacted the nation’s roads, with a key route in Isfahan province shut after more than 2 m (6.6 ft) accumulated last week. Officials said the road will likely not be reopened until spring.


Heavy Snow Transforms European Landscapes

Snow has returned to Europe this week, in time to greet those greasy control-freaks flying into Davos.

Even in and around the UK, heavy snow has been reported, in Scotland:


And in Ireland:


And even in southwest England:

https://twitter.com/pens_pause/status/1615234892073148417


There has been feet of accumulating powder across the Alps, too, including in Davos–which has led to the quiet retraction of all those AGW Party funded fire and brimstone articles, which is pretty comical…


Staying in the Alps, and further dismantling the torturous, anti-human ‘climate emergency’ agenda, the temperature data from 12 mountain stations shows no winter warming in over 30 years and only slight warming since the early-1970s.

Looking at the reliable winter data available from the Swiss, German and Austrian meteorological services, researcher Günther Aigner found only ‘modest warming’ since 1971: “There’s an astonishing contrast between official measurements and public opinion,” said Aigner. “The linear trend shows a slight increase of only 0.7C — which is not statistically significant.”


Moreover –and as touched on above– ignoring the historically-cold era of the 1970s, the records show zero warming for the past 30 years. And more than that, as Aigner points out, the mean winter temperature for the 12 mountain stations actually shows a decrease of some 2C from 1992 to 2011.

Cries of a ‘snowless Alps’ are nothing but climatic ambulance-chasing; as were the headlines regarding Aussie bushfires a few years back; and reports of the Great Barrier Reef ‘bleaching’ event — with all three doomsday scenarios now miraculously having ‘fixed’ themselves without human intervention.

It stands that regional snowfall can vary immensely year-to-year, meaning it isn’t a great ‘climate barometer’.

Take Davos-2018, for example, when six feet of snow settled in as many days.

And this year, just look at California…


33 Feet And Counting: California Town Buried In Snow

Researchers at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab have logged record-smashing volumes of snow this season. This is the theme across California’s higher elevation and has led to the approval of an emergency declaration by thrown-under-the-bus Biden.

Mammoth Lakes, California has received 119 inches of snow during the past week alone, which takes the season’s total (since Nov 2) to over 400 inches — a new all-time record.


Looking ahead, long term weather models are showing the increasing possibility for colder weather over much of North America.

Throughout the first half of January, the jet stream has held the fiercest of the polar cold over Russia and Asia; however, long-range models hint that a change is on the cards. Closing out the month, models show the jet stream trending into an amplified pattern, which should give more opportunities for extreme Arctic air to dip south, deep into North America.

Latest model runs show the possibility of a winter wallop, perhaps even a full-blown ‘Arctic Outbreak, by the end of the month, as visualized by The Weather Network graphic below:

Wavy ‘meridional’ jet stream plunging south, dragging polar cold down through Canada and deep into the CONUS.


Stay tuned for updates.