Madrid woke up last week to heavy snow as Spain suffered its coldest weather for fifty years. Indeed, a record was made and broken just 24 hours later by another, even colder measurement (in the Picos de Europa, León: minus 35.6ºC). On Monday, the weather people were saying that, in general, things were due to get even worse across Spain until perhaps Thursday 14th January. It is, of course, all the politicians fault.
The joke going around says ‘After just one year of commie-rule in Spain, Madrid is looking a lot like Moscow’. In fact, with 60cms of snow last Saturday, it looked worse than the Russian capital – no trains, buses or, barely, cars. One fellow was photographed (videos) skiing down the Avenida de la Castellana. Reddit/Spain has lots of pictures featuring snow.
Many foreigners are surprised by these extremes, fondly imagining Spain to be warm all year round. In fact, since almost all of the country is elevated (the average height above sea level is 660m says Wiki), away from the costas, we tend to enjoy bubbling heat in the high summer and perishing cold in mid-winter.
As for Global Warming (what, with these freezing days?), it’s ‘perfectly reconcilable’ with Climate Change says the ABC here – and anyway, just to make the point, it’s hot in Australia right now..
To make bad things even worse, the price of electric rose sharply (except in Barcelona, where the service is a publicly-owned company). Schools have to keep their windows open (Covid rules) and the army was called in to help volunteers clear the streets. Indeed, even Pablo Casado managed a brief photo-shoot in Madrid as he shovelled some snow.
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