Cold plunge of winter continues by Jo Farrow
The cold plunge of wintry weather has continued through Europe and reached northern Africa. Algeria had a blanket of snow on Thursday. Algerians said they hadn’t seen that amount of snow in over forty years. For the capital Algiers and larger towns, roads were cleared and the snow was enjoyed as a novelty but for more remote areas the wintry weather caused real problems and there were casualties.
Temperatures in Switzerland plummeted on Thursday 27th. Zurich fell to minus 9 Celsius and Geneva to minus 6 Celsius. However, the lowest temperature in Switzerland was minus 19 Celsius at Aigle with a very strong wind.
Further reports of winter weather have been received from elsewhere in Europe. President Putin’s flight was delayed due to snow and Ukraine’s new leader, Yushchenko, had to cancel his trip to Brussels due to the bad weather. The roads in Moscow were covered in snow with pleas for people to not park along roads needing snow ploughing. And in Ukraine there were power cuts for some towns and villages thanks to the heavy snowfall.
Weather of a different kind caused problems in Australia to end the week. The West Indies were playing Australia at cricket in the Tri-Series in Brisbane when along came the rain and interrupted play. The Queensland coast has been seeing some very heavy rain this month with seasonal flooding affecting some areas.
Further south, in Melbourne it was the heat that affected the sports men and women. For the ladies doubles tennis final on Friday, temperatures reached over 35 Celsius and so the roof was closed on the stadium to quell the heat.
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