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Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

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Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by johnno »

3rd least snowiest January in the United states on the flip side of the coin Asia/Europe is having its 9th snowiest January since 1966


..Where's the snow? Not in Lower 48,


...WASHINGTON (AP) — Snow has been missing in action for much of the U.S. the last couple months. But it's not just snow. It's practically the season that's gone AWOL.

"What winter?" asked Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center. For the Lower 48, January was the third-least snowy on record, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records for the amount of ground covered by snow go back to 1967.

Last year, more than half the nation was covered in snow as a Groundhog Day blizzard barreled across the country, killing 36 people and causing $1.8 billion in damage. This year, less than a fifth of the country outside of Alaska has snow on the ground.

Bismarck, N.D., has had one-fifth its normal snow, Boston a third. Buffalo is three feet below normal for snowfall this year. Midland, Texas, has had more snow this season than Minneapolis or Chicago.

Forget snow. For much of the country there's not even a nip in the air. On Tuesday, the last day in January, all but a handful of states had temperatures in the 50s or higher. In the nation's capital, where temperatures flirted with the 70s, some cherry trees are already budding — weeks early.

For the Northeast it's one of the warmest and least snowy winters on record, with most of the region's temperatures the last couple months averaging 5 degrees warmer than normal, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.

"I am disgusted that golfers are golfing on my cross-country ski course," said New Jersey state climatologist David Robinson, director of the Global Snow Lab.

Matt Dulli, an assistant golf pro at The Golf Club at Yankee Trace in the Dayton, Ohio, suburb of Centerville, said 115 rounds were played Tuesday amid balmy temperatures that reached a high of 60 degrees.

"The first thing you hear out of people's mouths is, 'Can you believe we're playing golf in January?' They're just ecstatic that they can get out at this time of year," Dulli said.

But there is lots of snow and dangerous cold — it's just elsewhere in the world. Valdez, Alaska, has had 328 inches of snow this season — 10 feet above average — and the state is frigid, with Fort Yukon hitting a record 66 below zero over the weekend.

Nearly 80 people have died from a vicious cold snap in Europe, and much of Asia has been blanketed with snow. January has been the ninth snowiest since 1966 for Europe and Asia, though for the entire northern hemisphere, it's been about average for snow this season.

The weather is so cold that some areas of the Black Sea have frozen near the Romanian coastline, and rare snowfalls have occurred on islands in the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. Ukraine alone has reported 43 fatalities, many of the victims homeless people found dead on streets. More than 720 other Ukrainians have been hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite.


The reason is changes in Arctic winds that are redirecting snow and cold. Instead of dipping down low, the jet stream winds that normally bring cold and snow south got trapped up north. It's called the Arctic oscillation. Think of it as a cousin to the famous El Nino.

When the Arctic oscillation is in a positive phase, the winds spin fast in the Arctic keeping the cold north. But in the past few days, the Arctic oscillation turned negative, though not in its normal way, Halpert said. The cold jet stream dipped in Europe and Asia, but is still bottled up over North America.

That's because another weather phenomena, called the North Atlantic oscillation is playing oddball by staying positive and keeping the cold away from the rest of North America. About 90 percent of the time, the North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations are in synch, Halpert said. But not this time, so much of the United States is escaping the winter's worst.

What's happening isn't just an inconvenience.

Trees and plants budding early may lose their chance to bloom when the inevitable deep freeze returns, said U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Jake Weltzin, who heads a national network that monitors the timing of spring for plants and animals. He said peach trees are budding in Georgia and in Oklahoma forsythia and daffodils have been out for two weeks now, adding "it's happening everywhere."

"If you think about plants and animals being kind of biologic thermometers, they are indicating a very early spring," Weltzin said. "That's a problem."

This could mean less fruit available this year, Weltzin said. In New York, it could weaken the grapes used to make wine, added Cornell University horticulturalist David W. Wolfe.

But it is getting people outside more often.

In the heart of the snow belt, Holden Arboretum saw a 32 percent jump in December attendance and a 20 percent jump in January visits. Over the two months about 4,200 people visited the site in Kirtland, Ohio, outside Cleveland, that features gardens, woodlands and trails.

Along Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, a ferry service that carries visitors to islands was beginning winter routes Wednesday for the first time in six years.

"We've just had a remarkable run of unusual winters in the past six years globally," said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Mich. "I have to say that winter hasn't really hit yet. Certainly not where I live."
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by crikey »

Come more cold news from Nth Japan

Dozens killed as icy weather grips Japan
Read here
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/do ... 6261147670" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
===============================================================================================

I have been wondering what is the source of this cold.?. as arctic temp anomalies are high(warm) and artic ice extent low
but upper air has cold anomalies

I know the Jetstreams are largely horizontal winds ., however wondering where the cold is coming from seeing the Arctic anomalies are so warm

Just commencing a little reading on the topic
There seems to be some scientific studies /discussion regarding the cooling trend in the stratosphere which is the layer of air above our weather( troposphere which also contains the ozone layer)

Here is the abstract from one such study
O just love the title!!!
-------------------------
Stratospheric Harbingers of Anomalous Weather Regimes

1. Mark P. Baldwin* and
2. Timothy J. Dunkerton
1.
Northwest Research Associates, 14508 Northeast 20th Street, Bellevue, WA 98007–3713, USA.
Science 19 October 2001:
Vol. 294 no. 5542 pp. 581-584
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063315

Abstract

Observations show that large variations in the strength of the stratospheric circulation, appearing first above ∼50 kilometers, descend to the lowermost stratosphere and are followed by anomalous tropospheric weather regimes.
During the 60 days after the onset of these events, average surface pressure maps resemble closely the Arctic Oscillation pattern.
These stratospheric events also precede shifts in the probability distributions of extreme values of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, the location of storm tracks, and the local likelihood of mid-latitude storms. Our observations suggest that these stratospheric harbingers may be used as a predictor of tropospheric weather regimes.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5542/581.abstract" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We often consider the source of cold.. as from the poles. However there is an abundant supply of icy temps in the upper atmosphere

I believe we will hearing more about the stratosphere and some of the vertical wind flows sometime soon ?
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by johnno »

Record Cold Snap Hits Korea
Korea is in the grip of another cold spell ahead of Ipchun or the official beginning of spring by the lunar calendar on Saturday. The Korea Meteorological Administration forecast on Wednesday that the morning low would plunge to -17 degrees Celsius in Seoul on Thursday, the month’s coldest since -17.3 degrees on Feb. 11, 1957.

The KMA said the temperature would drop further on Thursday morning across the nation and, due to the wind chill factor, would feel like -23 to 24 degrees. Most of the northern area of Gyeonggi Province and the northwestern area of Gangwon Province were forecast to experience bitter cold, with temperatures below -20 degrees.



http://english.chosun.com/site/data/htm ... 01112.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by johnno »

While USA has had mild times of late Mexico has been hit by drought and Cold weather

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/world ... exico.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by johnno »

Cold snap causes ice floating in Huanghai Sea and Bohai Sea


http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7718276.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

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http://www.japantoday.com/category/nati ... hern-japan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

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http://www.aljazeera.com/weather/2012/0 ... 13601.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by crikey »

A satellite picture of cloud over England today
http://www.weathercharts.org/satellite-uk.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Image

Had a look at some anomalies for some weather variables for Jan 2012 in the lead up to the cold outbreak in Europe and surrounds currently
For the record l have compiled this from
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... rea=global" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can see a very distinct hot spot of anomalous atmosphere that penetrates the upper. mid and surface layers .The very strong anomalies are in the atmosphere ,north of Europe near the arctic circle /arctic ocean/ Denmark/ Scandinavian region

The anomalies l have compiled for JAN 2012 can be viewd here
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ov3iy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

or from the source which is from the BOM.. global anomalies
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... rea=global" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


A summary of the anomalous area nth of Europe ( near the arctic circle /arctic ocean)

Upper air Nth of Europe
Very High anomaly of geopotential height at 200mb ( upper air)
Colder anomalies for temperature At the 200mb level
High wind anomalies at the 200mb level

Mid level nth of Europe
Very high anomalies in Geopotential height at the 500hpascal level
strong wind anomalies at the 500hpascal level

Surface atmosphere
Very strong geopotential anomalies at the 850mb layer
Warm surface anomalies in the arctic region

MSLP
a very strong anomalous high pressure north of Europe near the arctic circle
and when you have a look at the mean for that region ( the arctic north of Europe ) and compare it to the mean , it stands out like a sore toe.

I am not in a position to comment on geopotential height as l am still trying to understand it
but what did come to mind was that this anomalous area was very localized and penetrated the upper, mid and lower levels at the same place

As to the cause?
I was wondering if the Icelandic volcano to the west of the anomalous area that erupted last year may have caused the anomaly ??
It is quite curious as to the intensity of this hot spot on the globe in terms of the stand out extreme anomalies in the one spot.?
Maybe a solar focus point? from activity quite recently?
If due to arctic warm anomalies then why the intense anomaly focused nth of Europe?

A geopotential hot spot .Why?


Monthly anomalous 200 hPa geopotential height
January 2012
Image
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by Geoff »

There have been some brilliant pictures of the big freeze in Europe so far, this one really caught my eye today...
Frozen Sea.jpg
Frozen Sea.jpg (58.51 KiB) Viewed 15025 times
The seafront is frozen in the Adriatic coastal town of Senj, Croatia
AWF Rainfall Details - Monthly rainfall stats. Please post your totals here at the end of each month, thank you
http://www.theaustralianweatherforum.co ... &start=180
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by johnno »

Incredible pics!

Western Canada Looks Set For Record Snowfall Season
http://en.skiinfo.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
February 12, 2012

As parts of North America still battle for good snow cover, some resorts in Alberta and BC look set to break records for snowfall tallys by the end of their long season in May.

With over three months left to go in the ski season, Marmot Basin near Jasper has already received over 12 feet (372 cm) of snowfall which is 93% of its annual average. If the next three months produce typical amounts of snowfall, Marmot Basin will exceed its all time snowfall record of 529 cm set way back in 1965. Regardless of the numbers, skiers and snowboarders have been absolutely thrilled with snow conditions at Marmot Basin and, to some, it has come as a bit of a surprise.

“There is very little snow on the ground in one of our closest big cities Edmonton and when some people get to the mountain they are really surprised at how much snow we have” says Brian Rode, Marmot’s VP of marketing. “Marmot’s base elevation is very high so the rain that has fallen at lower elevations this winter has been all snow at Marmot”, added Rode.

Marmot Basin skiers and boarders are not only basking in exceptional snow conditions, they also have two new chairlifts to ride this winter including the new Paradise high speed quad chair. Marmot Basin has installed three new chairlifts in as many years and is leading all Canadian ski areas in ski lift development. “Marmot Basin is not the same ski area it was three years ago. The three new chairlifts we have installed, along with all our other improvements, has really transformed the ski experience at Marmot”, comments Rode. “I’ve talked to people who have come back to Marmot after a few years away and they are blown away by how different and how much better the mountain is”, he adds.

Marmot Basin will be open until May 6th this season thanks in part to all the snow Mother Nature has bestowed upon the area and also thanks to the state-of-the-art snowmaking system that was installed in 2006.


Source
Belgium in longest cold wave since 1941
February 12, 2012

Belgium is being confronted with the longest cold snap in more than 70 years, the Met Office reports. Saturday was the 13th consecutive day with maximum temperatures during the day staying below zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) in Ukkel (Brussels). Sunday should add another day, but after that it’s the end of the blistering cold.

The previous cold wave, in January 1997, continued for 12 days. This was also the case for January 1987.

However, this cold period just beats the eighties and nineties. David Dehenauw, the weather presenter of the commercial TV station VTM, explains that the last time we had temperatures below zero degrees Celsius for such a long time, was in January 1941. “It is quite exceptional that temperatures cannot climb above zero degrees Celsius for 13 and possibly 14 consecutive days”, he says.

The figures apply to the centre of the country and the eastern part. In the west, near the coast, temperatures did climb slightly above zero degrees a couple of times in the last two weeks.

On Sunday afternoon, the wind should turn to the north and north west. The sea wind will bring showers and fresh temperatures, but no frost. The roads could slippery on Sunday evening or Monday morning, the Met Office warns.

Coldest start to February since 1917

Taking into account the first 10 days of this month, Belgium is having the coldest start to February since 1917. Average maximum temperatures during the past ten days reached -2.6 degrees Celsius, compared to -2.7 in 1917.



At 8.8C, Thursday was third coldest day ever in Mumbai
February 12, 2012

MUMBAI: Wednesday was one of those rare nights when all fans had to be switched off and people living on the streets gathered around small fires. Thursday’s minimum temperature – recorded in the early hours – was Mumbai’s third coldest day ever and second coldest day in the last 50 years.

The coldest day in Mumbai came on January 22, 1962, when the mercury dipped to 7.4 Celsius. On February 8, 2008, the temperature was 8.5Celsius. The third coldest day in the city came on Thursday, when the minimum temperature was 8.8 Celsius. This also made it the second-coldest February day ever.

After reaching 14.2C on Wednesday, the temperature in Santa Cruz was around seven degrees below normal on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Colaba weather station recorded a minimum of 14.2, six degrees below normal for that part of the city.

The weather department has said cold waves from the north are leading to the dipping temperatures.

“A western disturbance in the northern plains persists,” said V K Rajeev, director of weather forecasts at the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Mumbai. A western disturbance is an extra-tropical storm, or a low-pressure system, that originates in the Mediterranean Sea and moves eastwards. This causes rainfall in Iran, Pakistan and northern parts of India as well as snowfall in some parts of India.

According to the all-India weather report, snowfall occurred at a few places over the western Himalayan region, while rainfall was recorded at a few places in eastern Uttar Pradesh, the sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Punjab, J&K and one or two places in Bihar.

“This western disturbance has been causing cold and snowfall in the north,” said Rajeev. Meanwhile, “strong northerly winds have been bringing the cold here (to Mumbai), causing the dip in temperatures”, added Rajeev.

Early office-goers and morning walkers were covered in warm clothes on Thursday. Windows in many homes were kept shut to save the household from the chill. However, the IMD said the wind’s velocity was not as bad as on Wednesday. Then northerly winds were flowing in at a normal rate of 10 to 15 knots, but there were times they were gusting at 20 knots.

On Thursday, the day temperature recorded in Colaba was 26.5 degrees, whereas in Santa Cruz it was 28 degrees. The relative humidity was also low, with Colaba and Santa Cruz recording 43% and 32% evening humidity, respectively.

According to the weather bureau, Mumbaikars can expect the chill to remain till Friday evening. “The temperatures can be expected to be low for another day, after which the western disturbance will pass and temperatures will rise to normal,” said Rajeev. However, there is another western disturbance in the offing, which could bring another cold wave after around five days. The winter, thus, is not likely to be over for Mumbaikars soon.



Germany: Hamburg lake draws 100,000 skating fans
February 12, 2012

Some 100,000 skating fans were celebrating winter Saturday afternoon in Hamburg with an ice party on the outer Alster, one of two artificial lakes running through the city.

The festivities started Friday and run through Sunday. It’s being billed as Germany’s largest winter party and occurs when the river freezes over sufficiently to support a crowd.

The last outer Alster festival was 15 years ago. Weeks of below freezing temperature have made this year’s party possible.

On Saturday afternoon there were impromptu ice hockey games taking place on the 164 hector river in the middle of the city. Others just skated. Some brought their children for a first time experience.

Hamburg residents weren’t the only ones in on the fun. On the Masch lake in Hannover more than 100,000 people are expected over the weekend for another large ice party.

Skating fans should be sure to have their fun this weekend. Meteorologists are calling for some warmer temperatures next week that should push thermometers past the zero degree point.



Scores of ships confined to port – Ice shuts Danube in half-a-dozen countries
February 12, 2012

BELGRADE: Thick ice has closed hundreds of kilometres (miles) of the Danube river in half-a-dozen countries and confined scores of ships to port on the busiest European waterway, officials said yesterday. The 2,860-kilometre (1,780-mile) river, which flows through nine countries and is vital for transport, power, irrigation, industry and fishing, was wholly or partially blocked from Austria to its mouth on the Black Sea.

With ice floes in the river around Belgrade up to half a metre (1.7 feet) thick, the Belgrade port authority said that all vessels on the 600-kilometre stretch through Serbia were safely in port. A government ban on navigation on all the country’s waterways was expected to remain in place for some 10 days, deputy infrastructure minister Pavle Galic told the Beta news agency. Upstream in Croatia an operation was being mounted to rescue the three-member crew of a Croatian vessel trapped in the ice near the main Danube port of Vukovar since Friday and running out of food, port official Ivan Barovic said.

All shipping has been halted since Wednesday on the 137 kilometres (85 miles) of the Danube flowing through Croatia, Barovic told AFP. Serbian railways meanwhile said yesterday that the famed Balkan Express train that runs from Belgrade to Istanbul would only go as far as Sofia for the time being because of flooding in Bulgaria related to the cold snap. Top Serbian water official Aleksandar Prodanovic said he hoped for a slow thaw by some five degrees Celsius daily “so the snow melts slowly and causes no bigger problems.”

A quick rise in temperature could trigger floods because of the high levels of snow in Serbia which is up to 1.5 metres in some parts, he told Radio Belgrade. Bulgarian authorities, who have also banned all navigation on the river, reported the Danube frozen between 50 and 90 percent, while a total of 224 vessels were stuck in six ports and a river channel in Bulgaria. In Romania the river was completely frozen along a 120-kilometre stretch between Moldova Veche and Turnu Severin at the Serbian end, and a further 117 kilometres downstream between Calarasi and Harsova, as well as at Isakcha, in the Danube delta.

Upstream in Hungary ships were still being allowed on the Danube but “at their own risk” the authorities said, adding that ice was covering between 60 and 70 percent of the river But in Austria navigation was impossible as the river had an ice layer up to 12 centimetres (4.7 inches) thick in parts. “For the Danube to freeze we need temperatures of under minus 10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) for at least a week. That is currently the case,” the river traffic body Via Donau said.


Cold weather kills 11 in northern Tunisia, coldest since 1960s
February 12, 2012

TUNIS, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) — The cold weather spell which hit many parts of Tunisia has killed at least 11 people in the northern town of Ain Draham, near Algeria’s border, Radio Mosaique FM reported Saturday.

Snowy weather, which started last week, stroke major roads and isolated hamlets and villages in the town, and even caused destruction of old houses after their roofs fell in due to accumulated snow, the report said.

Water and electricity are no longer available for thousands of stranded villagers in northern Tunisia, the radio said.

According to official weather forecast agency, temperatures are expected to drop again in the coming three days. The government has sent in the army to clear off the snow and to channel fresh water and food supplies.

Meanwhile, the dramatic television footage of destitute children shivering from the cold and the snow has also prompted an unprecedented nationwide donation campaign relayed by local media.

Qatar, Libya and the United Arab Emirates have also sent in emergency relief aid in the form of tents, blankets and foodstuff to the areas hit hard by the cold weather.

The last cold weather spell to have hit northern and northwestern Tunisia dated back to the 1960s.


Turkey: Quake survivors suffer in Europe’s freeze
February 11, 2012

ANKARA, Turkey — Freezing temperatures and heavy snow in Turkey are making life miserable for the more than 140,000 residents who were left homeless by the nation’s devastating earthquake four months ago and are still living in tents or temporary shelters.

The cold snap, which began in Europe in late January, has left some families in Turkey’s quake relief centres trying to stay warm by using coal stoves or electric heaters as their drinking water freezes overnight. Nearly 30 centimetres of snow have fallen in the quake zone, and temperatures have dipped as low as -20 C.

Elsewhere in Europe the situation has been much worse, with hundreds of people, most them homeless, dying in the cold and many cities and towns trapped by much deeper snow.

In Romania, officials reported 13 more deaths Friday and rounded up about 220 homeless people to shelter them from the deep freeze at night. Huge chunks of ice blocked navigation on the Danube River in Romania, one of Europe’s key waterways.

In October, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake and a powerful aftershock flattened some 2,000 buildings and killed 644 people around the city of Van, a provincial capital in southeastern Turkey. The government responded by moving 134,000 people to temporary homes and 7,500 others to tents.

At one of the camps Friday, Gonul Meral, 33, who is living in a tent with her two children and unemployed husband, said: “I am doing the dishes now, but the water in the basin is frozen, so I have to heat it up again. It’s so hard.”

The house she and her family were renting before the disaster was destroyed by the quake.

“I miss cooking there very much,” she said in a telephone interview. “Sometimes, I feel that I can’t stand it another day,” Meral said, sobbing.

Ragtag encampments have sprung up in empty patches of ground in the quake zone.

These people say they prefer to stay close to their property to guard it, even if their life is tougher than it would be in the relief centres.
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Re: Northern Hemisphere Winter 2011-12

Post by crikey »

Those reports from overseas are just heart breaking Johnno.. and great photo Geoff!

Here is a follow up story as the temp starts to rise

Image

Ice floes smash boats in Belgrade
Updated: 21/02/2012
Ice floes smash boats in Belgrade

A sudden thaw has sent vast blocks of ice surging down the River Danube, destroying boats, pontoons and floating restaurants in the Serbian capital Belgrade.

Temperatures in Serbia rose from -20 degrees Celsius last week to 10C on Sunday, melting packed ice more than 30 centimetres thick.

Boats and barges were ripped from their moorings and beached on the riverbank, with debris scattered through the breaking ice for nearly two kilometres.

"We are trying to salvage whatever we can; only a handful of boats remained intact from about a hundred we had in the marina," said boat owner Mihailo Svilaric at the Kapetanija marina in Belgrade's picturesque Zemun neighbourhood.

"The ice was so fast that we could do nothing to prevent this," said another boat owner, Dragan Jovanovic.

"The damage will be hundreds of thousands of euros for sure."

Serbian authorities had used icebreakers on the Danube, Sava and Tisa rivers, but the ice built up too quickly and port authorities halted traffic on all waterways on February 8.

At least 20 people have died from cold in Serbia in the past few weeks.

On Monday, the government was considering lifting a two-week state of emergency introduced as an energy-saving measure and to allow rescuers to open roads and bring supplies to as many as 70,000 people stranded by snow and ice in rural areas.

In southern Germany, ice is still blocking the Danube to inland waterways shipping along with a series of other smaller canals and rivers.

Reuters

© Reuters 2012
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