# Milan, the snowiest european metro ?



## Varsben (Jan 14, 2005)

Lee said:


> Warsaw?



People often wrongly assume that "harshness" of a winter is determined by the amount of snow dumped by individual storms. While what huge individual snowfalls prove in first place is the high level of precipitation in a location, but not necessarily amazingly low average temperatures. Few places in the planet have both extremely high snowfalls/deeply below freezing average temp figures for winter months (Russia's Kamchatka peninsula is such a place, also extensive Canadian/US heartland regions). Therefore, to get a clue on how snowy a location may be, one must first look at its average winter temp figures.

Another crucial factor - related to the above - is average number of days with snow cover in a year. Places like Washington D.C. or Milan may get very heavy snowfalls from time to time, but snow there usually does not survive on the ground any longer than a few days, before it disappears without a trace. Therefore, to call a city "snowy", it must necessarily have snow cover for longer periods of time and higher frequency, yet more importantly than record depths on a specific individual day.

Considering those overall terms, let's have a look at Europe's capitals. The most snowy overall are certainly Moscow, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Oslo, Stockholm, Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev. 

That group of leaders is closely followed by Warsaw.

In the European context, especially considering Warsaw's location on roughly the same latitude as Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and only modestly further north than e.g. Brussels or even Paris, the Polish capital can be labeled snowy, indeed.


*To illustrate this conclusion, let's look at the most recent years 2005, 2006 and first half of 2007.*


In 2005, Warsaw had 64 days with snow precipitation, 81 days with snow cover, max snow depth was 34 cm.

In 2006, it had 43 days with snow precipitation, 89 days with snow cover, max snow depth was 33 cm.

In 2007 thus far, it has had 22 days with snow precipitation, 21 days with snow cover, max snow depth was 24 cm.

Especially the 2007 data are very interesting, knowing that winter 2006/2007 was overall a record mild one. Even January *- the mildest ever recorded here -* had 8 days with snow cover with 24 cm of max depth. These figures would be considered super-extremely high for e.g. London.

Also important is the fact that winter months are normally the driest here, January/February average precip only slightly exceeds 20 mm, that's just a small portion of winter precipitation e.g. of sub-Alpine areas. Thus Warsaw's snow cover/depth figures prove that the city's winter precipitation is mostly in form of snow - in typical winters.

But still Warsaw's deepest snow cover on record - *72 cm *in January 1979 - is very respectable. (It is actual fallen snow cover of course, not the maximum height of wind-driven snowdrifts, that reached ca 2 metres in places!). I don't think lowland Western Europe (to the west of Poland) ever received such amount.

*All that indeed makes Warsaw an extraordinarily "wintery" city, when compared to the entire European lowland region west of Poland.*


Now look at some latest winter pics, taken last January in a Warsaw park. Yes - we did then have several days like these. Keep in mind, it still was *a record mild January!*

The snow depth shown in the photos is very typical for freezing winter days here (some 20 cm).























































When looking closely at Europe's climate charts, one may easily observe that the line of average maximum January 0°C - separating the zone that normally has most freezing days in the month, from milder areas where thawy above-zero days dominate even in the coldest month (January) - in central/eastern Europe runs exactly across Warsaw's area. The city's average January max temp oscillates between -1°C and +1°C, depending on decade. (Compare that to London's +8°C/+9°C!).

To the east of my city, the realm of predominantly freezing/snowy winter weather begins. To the west - thaw conditions dominate in winter.

To give examples of specific cities - Berlin, only 600 km to the west across the Polish plain from Warsaw - has remarkably milder winters with much less snow, than Warsaw. In a typical winter, Germany's capital has maybe a half of the overall number of freezing/snowy days that Warsaw has. Not rarely Berlin has none or nearly none in a given season, what does not happen here, a winter completely devoid of snow/subzero temps did not yet occur on records.

Not to speak of locations further west than Berlin, obviously they're even milder, as the warm winter impact of the Atlantic Ocean intensifies.


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## northern italian (Sep 12, 2002)

Yes, Warsaw is practically on the "climatic" border between the atlantic influence and the continental influence.

So is Germany, but in a lighter way.

Northern Italy is more on the border between mediterranean climate, continental climate and the atlantic/oceanic climate, and in fact we have weather influences from all of them.

About the days with snowcover: the Po valley in average has got 5-10 days with snowcover per year in the mildest/less snowy areas (Venice, adriatic coast, SE Veneto/Friuli), 15-25 days in the central areas and up to 30-35 days in the rest, with peaks of 35-45 days in the SW areas of Piedmont (south of Turin) and near the Appennines (south of Piacenza and Parma).

Some winters (i.e. 1946-47 or 1984-1985) brought even 2-3 months of consecutive snowcover. 

About the record height of the snowcover,as already said, Milan has had peaks of 90 cm (not the fresh snow total, but the snow on the ground) in the january 1985's storm.

About the fresh snow, to report that Turin received *233 cm* of snow in winter 1784-85.
The only december 1808 brought *128 cm*.


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## Angry Bob (Jun 26, 2007)

Milan, Europe's snowiest Metro? Keep dreamin' :rofl:

Have u heard of Moscow, Olso, Stockholm, Vilnius etc?


bte, northern italian - you leaving the temperature thread is you telling me that I've won :cheer:


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## Varsben (Jan 14, 2005)

northern italian said:


> Yes, Warsaw is practically on the "climatic" border between the atlantic influence and the continental influence.
> 
> So is Germany, but in a lighter way.


In a lighter way indeed. Speaking of west Germany, even very much lighter. In our perspective, typical winters in Frankfurt or Cologne are stunningly mild, oceanic. But east Germany's winters are also importantly milder than ours.

*Here are 1982-2007 average max/minima for January* (I took weatheronline for sake of comparing):

Frankfurt/Main +4.2°C / -0.5°C 
(our extremely mild version of winter is normal for them)

Berlin +3.1°C / -1.2°C

Warsaw +0.8°C / -3.9°C


The difference becomes spectacular during extremely cold winters. Let's look at Januarys of 1987 and 2006.


*Jan 1987*

Frankfurt/Main -1.3°C / -6.7°C

Berlin -4.1°C / -9.9°C

Warsaw *-8.6°C / -17.3°C* (!)


*Jan 2006*

Frankfurt/Main +1.9°C / -2.5°C

Berlin -0.9°C / -5.8°C

Warsaw -5.7°C / -10.9°C

It is also interesting to note that the drop in aver temps is deeper from Berlin to Warsaw than from Frankfurt to Berlin, despite the fact that Berlin is not far away from being in mid-distance between Frankfurt and Warsaw, and to say more, Berlin is 2 degrees lat. further north than Frankfurt, while Warsaw is even a little bit further south than Berlin.

Speaking of Italy, well the climatic difference between its extreme south and north, is striking. Two quite different worlds in principle. Did it ever snow e.g. in Palermo or Naples?


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## northern italian (Sep 12, 2002)

Vars_ said:


> Speaking of Italy, well the climatic difference between its extreme south and north, is striking. Two quite different worlds in principle. Did it ever snow e.g. in Palermo or Naples?


Indeed, the climatic difference between north and south is really remarkable.
The fact is that Italy is so long with the top practically in central Europe, and the bottom not far from north Africa.

Above all in winter, the differences can ben huge: in example: on january 13th, 1987 the temperature on 1:00pm was -7°C in Milan (snowing), +13°C in Rome (cloudy with SSW wind) and +19° in Palermo (cloudy, S wind).

About snow in Palermo and Naples:

In Palermo they have had sometimes sleet, 1 time very 10-15 years even 2-3 wet cm.

The last snowfall









Some examples
March 4th, 1949: 3 cm
February 8th, 1956: 5 cm
January 8th, 1981: in the city just a couple of wet cm, but up till 20 cm in the hilly district 150 mt above the city level.
January 30th, 1999: 3 cm

Naples doesn't see much more snow than Palermo, but one or two sleet event per winter aren't uncommon, and the higher parts of the metro can see a couple of cm

Some examples from Naples

February 28th, 2005


















January 21th, 1935









February 5th, 2003










Greets


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

People aren't listening here, are they Northern Italian? 

Stop naming metros that are clearly smaller than Milan, people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## northern italian (Sep 12, 2002)

Well, yea ... I clearly said in the opening post that I was speaking about metros/cities of a certain size (above 3-5 milions of inhabitants).

So, obviously, cities like Stockholm, Oslo, Kiev, Minsk, Helsinki etc are out of the speech


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## Varsben (Jan 14, 2005)

northern italian said:


> Well, yea ... I clearly said in the opening post that I was speaking about metros/cities of a certain size (above 3-5 milions of inhabitants).
> 
> So, obviously, cities like Stockholm, Oslo, Kiev, Minsk, Helsinki etc are out of the speech


Oops... Warsaw's metro area is only about 2 million. :shifty: 

So... the question about Europe's snowiest metro above 4 million, remains valid. Maybe it is Milan after all. :|


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

Ok, so Milan is Europe's snowiest metropolitan area over 4 million, excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg.:banana: 

Doesn't it sound cool?


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## Major Deegan (Sep 24, 2005)

Look said:


> Ok, so Milan is Europe's snowiest metropolitan area over 4 million, excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg.:banana:
> 
> Doesn't it sound cool?


not it's not ok, sir. You can't exclude something that is nonexcludablehno:


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