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Not only is North America bracing for a possible near record-setting cold blast from the Arctic, but also Siberia has been reporting massive snow cover and widespread cold. It’s only the first half of November and the dead of winter is still two months away!

The CO2 blanket having no effect in Siberia. Image source: earth.nullschool.net729.

This, experts have been warning, bodes ill for the chances of a harsh winter over North America and Europe. Two weeks ago Siberan snow cover and cold was already close to record high levels. That situation has only gotten worse, the Big Wobble Almanac here writes:

Remember how evidence was mounting last month that early snowfall was accumulating across Siberia? And remember how there’s a theory that says this snowfall signals a cold winter? So in the two and a half weeks since, the news for the winter-haters has, unfortunately, only gotten worse.

About 14.1 million square kilometers of snow blanketed Siberia at the end of October, the second most in records going back to 1967, according to Rutgers snow lab.”

There are other signs that Europe could be facing a cold winer, although so far early on it has seen weeks of very mild weather. The online prfire writes:

The first migrating Siberian swans landed in Britain – heralding the belated arrival of winter. Each year around 300 Bewick swans flock to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge, Glos after flying 2,500 from Arctic Russia. This year’s arrival – coinciding with the first cold snap of the season – is the latest for 45 years and more than two weeks ahead of usual. […] The Bewicks – the smallest and rarest members of the swan family – live in Siberia during the summer. In winter they migrate west – aided by chilling easterly winds – to escape winter temperatures of -25 degrees C. Bewick’s have migrated to Slimbridge every winter for 60 years and adult swans teach their young the route. Their arrival comes after weather experts predicted the harshest winter in 100 years. James Madden, forecaster for Exacta Weather, said last week: “The worst case and more plausible scenario could bring something on a similar par to the winter of 2009/10. ‘That was the coldest in 31 years, or an event close to 2010/11 which experienced the coldest December in 100 years.'”