You must have noticed the unusually dry, mild winter we are about to exit. If you visit the Pyrenees these days, you will see almost no snow where it should normally be all white at this time of the year. Below is a picture of the road to Ordesa valley from Torla (Huesca) taken last February: it looked like summer, for the Mondaruego peak and all the slopes below it should have been covered in snow by then. Now it is even worse, no snow over the South face of the range, threatening with an extremely dry summer and possible water shortages.
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| Ordesa from Torla, with Mondaruego peak in Feb 2012, by E.G. |
Recently the NASA has published an article about some possible causes of the lack of snow that affects large parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Below you can compare the last two years' snow cover over North America, and
here you can read the full article. If you want to know more about the Arctic Oscillation, do not miss
this one.
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| Snow cover map for March 3, 2011. (Image credit: NASA/MODIS) |
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| Snow cover map for March 5, 2012. (Image credit: NASA/MODIS) |
