Where Is The Snow, Continued. Madrid Edition (Texas, Too!)

Madrid, Spain near the La Almudena Cathedral. Photo by
Pablo Blazquez/Getty Images

 We Vermonters are still in the depth of a January snow drought, with  no signs of any real accumulation for at least a week or so. 

We've watched while other places, including ones that are not normally winter wonderlands, get buried. 

The latest is Madrid, Spain, which just received its biggest snowstorm since at least 1971. The city if 6.6 million people basically shut down in the snowy onslaught.

According to Reuters:

"In the Madrid area, rescuers reached 1,500 people trapped in cars, while on the usually traffic-clogged Gran Via, residents snowboarded and pelted each other with snowballs as well as ski."

Four people have died in the storm so far including two who drowned in heavy rains to the south of the snow zone in Spain and two people who froze to death. 

Besides those stuck in their cars that have been rescued, thousands of other people were trapped for 12 hours or more in airports, train stations and businesses.  The city's airport was closed as were train services, according to CBS News.

The weight of the snow, up to 20 inches in the Madrid area, caused quite a bit of tree damage as well.

It does snow in Madrid most winters, but amounts almost always amount to a dusting or so. The last real snowstorm in Madrid before this one appears to have been in February, 2005 when four inches fell. 

There are ski resorts in the mountains north of Madrid that normally do get pretty heavy snows.

Normal temperatures this time of year in Madrid are around 50 for highs and around 32 degrees at night. Temperatures in Madrid are forecast to all into the mid-teens over the next couple of nights, which is unusual for that region. It will also guarantee that snow will stay on the ground for awhile. 

TEXAS SNOW

Meanwhile, a storm was dumping snow today in a broad band clear across central Texas from the New Mexico border all the way to north of Houston. The snow was also spreading into northern and central Louisiana.

Heavy snow was simultaneously falling in Waco  in east central Texas and Lubbock in northwestern Texas at mid-morning today.

People in the Texas snow zone are being told to avoid travel today due to the slippery roads. Plus the fact they're not used to it and don't have snow tires. 

The storm causing the snow is expected to eventually weaken over the northern Gulf of Mexico and have absolutely no effects on us here in Vermont. 

Below are some videos of the Madrid snow. As always in this blog, click on the YouTube logo on each video to make them bigger and easier to see.

An overview from The Telegraph:

This Al Jazeera video mixes in some of the joy of the Madrid snow with the trouble it caused: