In Madrid, the capital of Spain, at 40 degrees north latitude, thick snow covered the road, bent branches, and frozen the transportation channels of coronavirus vaccine.
Recently, extremely cold weather has swept Spain, and Madrid has suffered the strongest blizzard in 50 years on the weekend. The blizzard lasted 30 hours, and snowed 20 centimeters in some areas, paralyzing a large number of roads, killing at least four people and stranding more than 1,500 people in the car.
Spain’s National Meteorological Service predicts that the lowest temperature in central Spain, where Madrid is located, may reach minus 12 degrees Celsius on the 12th.
According to the meteorological department’s temperature data from 1981 to 2010, the average minimum temperature in central Spain in the coldest January is only about 0 to minus 5 degrees.
Madrid has not snowed heavily in the past decade.
The Weather Service issued a red snow warning to Madrid over the weekend, calling the snowstorm an “abnormal and likely historic” phenomenon.
But Madrid people, who rarely see heavy snow, are more immersed in white joy, becoming a rare light in the shadow of the national blockade.
Many people shared pictures of snowscapes on social media, and some people even played with dog sleds on the streets of Madrid.
In the cold wind, 350,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine arrived in six airports in batches on the 11th.
Because blizzard weather blocked streets and highways, the vaccine originally planned for Madrid could only be transferred to Victoria in northern Spain, and then escorted to Madrid by the police.
According to the plan of the Spanish government, the progress of national vaccination should be accelerated this week to make up for the progress caused by the New Year holiday.
However, according to the data reported by the Ministry of Health, only half of all 750,000 doses of vaccine received by Spain as of the 11th were distributed to vaccination sites.
Fernando Simon, head of Spain’s emergency medical coordination center, said that given that vaccines are still prioritized for nursing home residents and medical workers, the cold wave has little impact on the vaccination plan in general.
Some medical staff in Madrid were still vaccinated on the 11th with the roar of snow shovels.
However, due to the obstruction of the commuter road, some medical personnel are unable to take up their posts, which also makes it difficult for the medical system to operate. AlbaMartínez, a nurse working in Madrid, was sent home to rest after six consecutive shifts.
She fears that the continuation of the cold weather will lead to a partial shortage of food in hospitals.
The collision of humid low pressure system from the Atlantic Ocean and strong cold air from Siberia over Spain was the main cause of the blizzard.
But Spain was only one of the first countries to feel the impact of the cold wave.
China and South Korea both entered the “quick freeze” mode last week.
The lowest temperature in Ningxia, Nanjing, Qingdao and other places has broken the historical extreme value since records, and the low temperature in Beijing has fallen below the record of the 21st century, reaching minus 18 °C. Seoul, South Korea, also experienced its lowest level of minus 18.6 degrees in 35 years.
The Han River freezes for the first time this winter, and many places have been closed down with heavy snow.
Due to the sudden warming of the stratosphere over the Arctic Circle, the polar vortex shifts southward, pushing the cold air of the Arctic southward to Eurasia and the United States, bringing cold weather to the whole northern hemisphere.
Located in the stratosphere of the atmosphere, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) from the earth’s surface, the polar vortex is a tight rotating airflow in the upper atmosphere, rotating rapidly from west to east around the Arctic Circle, limiting cold air to the Arctic region.
If the polar vortex is weak and the westerly jet slows down, it is prone to more fluctuations, which is conducive to the southward invasion of Arctic air masses and brings cold weather to mid-latitudes.
Polar vortexes have always existed, but in recent years, due to the frequent occurrence of extreme weather phenomena, it has also received more attention.
The cold weather encountered in many parts of the United States in early 2019 was also affected by the southward movement of the Arctic polar vortex.
Jason Furtado, an assistant professor at the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said that sometimes polar vortexes have little sense of existence, but sometimes they have a significant impact on the weather, which is also one of the basis for meteorologists to make weather forecasts.
It should be noted that the movement of polar vortex does not have an immediate effect, usually delaying by 1 to 2 weeks, and the impact may last for up to 8 weeks.
Bloomberg News expects extreme cold weather in late January in North America, Europe and Asia to be affected by the base vortex.
Tyler Roys, a meteorologist at AccuWeather, a commercial weather forecasting company, pointed out that Paris is currently about 15 degrees lower than normal, and the temperature in Beijing dropped sharply last week, which is a precursor to the cold wave.
Even in the Canari Islands, which is located in the southernmost part of Spain and near the coast of North Africa, it is affected by cold air, and rainfall is more than 60% higher than normal.
AccuWeather also pointed out that if cold air moves slowly, it cannot be ruled out that it will bring blizzards on the inauguration day of President Biden on January 20.
Although polar vortexes are only a meteorological phenomenon, there is growing evidence that Arctic melting ice and rising temperatures interfere with the troposphere over the Arctic, affecting the state of polar vortexes, making it easier for cold air inside the vortex to escape and flow southward.
In other words, climate warming may be less frequent blizzards worldwide, but the consequences of each blizzard may be more serious.
