4 ms·

I am from Madrid, and I can tell this is in fact highly unusual. From time to time it might snow in Madrid a couple of days, but nothing like this. In the mount

I am from Madrid, and I can tell this is in fact highly unusual. From time to time it might snow in Madrid a couple of days, but nothing like this. In the mountains of course it happen almost every year, but not in the plains... All the cities in central Spain are collapsed by the ice and snow (including the capital), there are no public transportation, emergencies services can barely make it into affected zones, a lot of people don't have water supply because of frozen pipes (including myself), trucks with food and supplies are still stuck and cannot enter in the city... This chaos is of course because we are not prepared for this extreme cold weather, and we are not prepared because this is VERY unusual. Let's say this is the same unusual as in the covid-19 pandemic,nobody would have imagined it a year ago.

cal5k 6y ago
Ah. Well, that makes sense. When it gets down to -25 here (thankfully not all that often in Southern Alberta) I just don't spend much time outside... although -25C still isn't cold enough to necessitate plugging in the truck. It gets truly, bitterly cold in places like Saskatoon, Edmonton or Winnipeg... -40 is not altogether uncommon. My house of made of Insulated Concrete Forms and has an amazing r value. A hot fire in the wood stove can quickly heat the whole place up to 22C, even when it's -20 outside. It can snow 50cm over a 12hr period, though, and that's always fun to deal with. I've gotten badly stuck in my own driveway twice this year (it's 40 feet long & annoying to clear), and both times the snowblower conked out and I had to take the thing apart and fix it before I was able to go into town to get groceries. Clearing the driveway with a shovel is simply not possible unless you plan to spend an entire day doing it. Anyhoo, all this to say is - dealing with that kind of weather requires some preparation, and I can see how it would cause mayhem in a place where that's unusual. Hopefully when air travel becomes abundant again I can travel to Spain to enjoy its warmth :-P

cal5k 6y ago

Ah. Well, that makes sense. When it gets down to -25 here (thankfully not all that often in Southern Alberta) I just don't spend much time outside... although -25C still isn't cold enough to necessitate plugging in the truck. It gets truly, bitterly cold in places like Saskatoon, Edmonton or Winnipeg... -40 is not altogether uncommon. My house of made of Insulated Concrete Forms and has an amazing r value. A hot fire in the wood stove can quickly heat the whole place up to 22C, even when it's -20 outside. It can snow 50cm over a 12hr period, though, and that's always fun to deal with. I've gotten badly stuck in my own driveway twice this year (it's 40 feet long & annoying to clear), and both times the snowblower conked out and I had to take the thing apart and fix it before I was able to go into town to get groceries. Clearing the driveway with a shovel is simply not possible unless you plan to spend an entire day doing it. Anyhoo, all this to say is - dealing with that kind of weather requires some preparation, and I can see how it would cause mayhem in a place where that's unusual. Hopefully when air travel becomes abundant again I can travel to Spain to enjoy its warmth :-P