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The 8-Bit Guys house in Texas
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JohnnyMalaria:
And palm trees grow in Scotland :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/6659301.stm
EEVblog:
Was I the only one that saw this and went "WTF, it snows in TEXAS?!"
Seriously, I did that, I had no idea.
Nominal Animal:
I got the picture that this is rare (as in once every couple of decades sort of thing), but not unprecedented.
(And that media is being a bit clickbaity in their "record-setting" claims, as this is generally not breaking any "all-time" records, just the last two or three decades.)

Even though these things are impossible to predict, we know the overall mechanism of how they occur.  The Wikipedia articles on the polar vortex (which keeps cold arctic air "confined" when strong, and "leaks" cold air south when weak) and Rossby waves (the polar jet stream being at the boundary of the polar vortex, and is a type of Rossby wave) describe the structure of the phenomenon, with the article on the (polar) jet stream providing interesting information on the polar jet stream itself, like it being surprisingly high in the atmosphere, at 9 - 12 km high, basically above the cloud layers.

Still, the complexity is in the details.  For example, when a "droplet" of cold air "detaches" from the polar vortex, it is very difficult to predict where it will collide with warmer wetter air causing snowfall.  Even in Finland, it is possible (but rare) that the very southernmost Finland has more snow than the northernmost parts, almost 1000 km north.

The funkiest region weather-wise in Finland is the 100 km or so north from the Bothnian Bay, where the weather changes from "central Finland" to "northern Finland" (for geographical reasons).  I take a roadtrip north-south across Finland a few times each year, and in this region, the difference/change in weather tends to be the biggest.

The funkiest region weather/biome-wise in Fennoscandia, in my opinion, is the trip from Kilpisjärvi (in northwesternmost tip of Finland) northwest to Skibotn in Norway, on the coast of Arctic ocean; only some 50 km or so, but also dropping some 500m in altitude.  The Finnish side is decidedly arctic, with few stunted trees and scattered shrubbery (actually dwarf birch, betula nana); with the Norwegian side, quickly tending to lush green forests.  It's amazing in the late spring: like literally coming from wintery tundra to summer within the span of an hour.  The Google Street View of traversing E8 northwest towards Norway captures some of it, in case you're into that sort of thing.
rsjsouza:

--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 25, 2021, 07:52:25 am ---Was I the only one that saw this and went "WTF, it snows in TEXAS?!"
Seriously, I did that, I had no idea.

--- End quote ---
West Texas can be incredibly cold in certain areas. Amarillo in the far west of the state easily reaches sub-zero ºC during winter.


--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on February 25, 2021, 09:29:53 am ---I got the picture that this is rare (as in once every couple of decades sort of thing), but not unprecedented.
(And that media is being a bit clickbaity in their "record-setting" claims, as this is generally not breaking any "all-time" records, just the last two or three decades.)

--- End quote ---
A bit?  :-DD

As for records, the 1929 Blizzard in Texas was quite devastating, but a much more recent blizzard in 2015 did not reach the international headlines as this one (maybe due to the political landscape and constant mud flinging to the other side?). We were not hit with snow as severe as in cities west from here, but I only remember the terrible completely off-season tornados that stroke houses not very far from where I live.

Nationwide, the worst weather conditions were in 1880/1881:
unixb0y:

--- Quote from: Ian.M on February 21, 2021, 02:51:44 pm ---'Bailing out' without shutting off the water was IQ below (unheated) room temperature stupid.  A smart guy would have shut off the water and drained as much of the plumbing as was practical without special tools or compressed air.

--- End quote ---

From when I was little, I remember we always shutting off the water of our garage in winter and reopening it in summer, it's kind of a no brainer if you know "its gonna get cold" to me tbh  ;D
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