Why It Suddenly Got So Cold

For the first half of the winter, there were warm temperatures and a lack of snow. But then all that changed: Temperatures in Europe have plunged. It has even snowed as far south as North Africa. Now it’s starting to warm up again.

On the NASA website, Dauna Coulter quotes NASA climatologist Bill Patzert as explaining what happened: "A couple of weeks ago, Mother Nature did an about face. The tight polar vortex that had bottled up the cold arctic air in the beginning of winter suddenly weakened. Cold air swept out of Siberia and invaded Europe and the Far East."

Some climatologists think the unusual cold is caused by global warming. Climatologist Judah Cohen says that since sea ice is being melted by warmer temperatures in the Arctic, more moisture is available for the atmosphere to pick up, and drop as snow. As a result, Siberian snow cover has increased, and this snow cover has a cooling effect which reaches East Asia and Europe.

The truth is, scientists are still trying to understand the weather. There was the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages. During the winter of 1683-84, the Thames River in England stayed frozen with a thick layer for two months. During the winter of 1812, Napoleon’s army was defeated by the extreme cold in Western Russia. And the turning point of World War II occurred in 1941, when Germany’s forces were nearly frozen.

Coulter quotes climatologist Bill Patzert as saying, "Looking back, Mother Nature has taken us on some very wild rides."

When Whitley learned about climate change from the Master of the Key, he decided to write a book about it. Now you can get a copy of the book that started it all–"The Coming Global Superstorm"–from our Whitley Strieber Collection that comes with a special bookplate signed by Whitley!