Watts Up With That?

More nasty weather in the northern hemisphere. It seems to be “piling up”.  This event caught many off-guard and unprepared. (h/t to Philip_B)

Rescued tourists wait for government vehicles to take them back to Gangtok. Telegraph picture

Thousands trapped in -15° snowstorm in Sikkim
27 Dec 2008, 0308 hrs IST, Amalendu Kundu, TNN

GANGTOK: A trip to the snow-laden Changu Lake turned into a nightmare for more than 3, 500 tourists including hundreds of children on Friday. They were trapped in snowstorm conditions with the temperature dipping to minus 15 degrees at a killing altitude of 13,300 feet before the army pulled them to safety.

The majority of those trapped were from Bengal. Hundreds fell ill, shivering in the icy cold as their vehicles remained stranded near Changu and Baba Mandir for hours. Clad in just jackets and scarves, the holidayers were hardly prepared, mentally or physically, to encounter a blizzard.
The army rescued them and took them to military camps, where warm soup and loads of blankets helped revive most of them. Many had to be admitted to the army medical units for treatment.

In the morning, there was little indication of what was to come. Tourists flocked to the Changu Lake by the hundreds as they do every day. With winter setting in, there was the added attraction of seeing the lake under glittering snow-covered peaks. The tourists got more than what they had asked for. Read the rest of this entry »

It appears this winter is rough not only in the USA, but elsewhere,. Significant snowfalls were also seen in 2002 and 2004.  From Today’s Zaman:

Snowfall immobilizes rural communities in eastern, central Turkey
Cold weather and heavy snowfall brought daily life to a standstill in rural parts of Turkey, forcing closures of rural roads and inter-city routes in the country’s eastern and central regions.

Snowfall was responsible for the closure of a highway on Thursday connecting the Hakkari district, located within the province of the same name, to the district of Çukurca. Several vehicles became stuck in the snow. Highway crews used snow plows to move the snow from the highway and free the vehicles.

Blizzards closed down over 1,000 village roads in the country’s eastern regions, and an inter-city route between Erzurum and Bingöl provinces was reopened to traffic after hours of plowing; however, the Iğdır-Ağrı inter-city road is still closed to traffic.