Original subtitles

With snow, ice, freezing temperatures,

and ferocious winds, the blizzard

is one of Mother Nature’s most effective killing machines.

But it requires a particular combination

of warm, moist air rising through a cold air mass,

which triggers snow and powerful winds.

These drive the falling snow,

as well as churning up the snow already on the ground,

to reduce visibility to practically zero.

And the brutal winds can create a dangerous windchill

that drops the effective temperature of the air

to minus-50 degrees Celsius,

killing anyone caught in its sweeping destruction.

Featuring interviews from leading experts,

and extraordinary personal stories of survival,

this episode of Deadly Disasters

will focus on blizzards and extreme cold weather events

from all over the world.

Including two historic blizzards

to hit the mid-Atlantic coast of America,

and a shocking storm that struck central Europe in 2017.

In meteorological terms,

a blizzard is a very specific extreme weather event.

It is spawned by an unusual set of conditions

that create the fatal combination

of snow and driving wind,

resulting in the dangerously low visibility

and lethal cold,

which define these freak weather phenomenons.

One of the most severe blizzards in recorded history

occurred along the east coast of the United States

in March of 1888.

Nicknamed "The Great White Hurricane,"

this mammoth of gale-force winds

and heavy snowfall caused much of New York City’s streets

to virtually disappear under the deep snow drifts.

The storm killed more than 200 of the city’s citizens,

and energized New York City officials

to further invest in vital infrastructure.

Adjusted for inflation, the blizzard cost the city

roughly 665 million U.S. dollars worth of damage.

Blizzards may even occur

when there is little or no snowfall.

High winds can whip up snow that is already on the ground,

creating a swirling mass of airborne snow

that is almost impossible to see through.

The official U.S. National Weather Service

definition of a blizzard

is a storm which contains a large amount of snow,

blown by winds of at least 56 kilometers per hour,

that reduces visibility to no more than 400 meters

for a length of three hours or more.

When one or two of these conditions are forecast,

the National Weather Service

will issue a "winter storm warning"

or "heavy snow warning."

If all three criteria are met,

they will broadcast a blizzard warning.

Blizzards pose extreme danger for a number of reasons.

The winds in a blizzard can be as powerful as a hurricane.

And just like a hurricane,

if they strike coastal areas,

they can cause surges of floodwater

that inundate seaside communities.

Blizzards can last up to five days,

cutting off communities,

leaving anyone trapped outside with little or no chance

of getting to safety or being rescued.

They reduce visibility, which can also kill,

making travel by car extremely dangerous.

Dry, powdery snow that has previously settled

can be thrown into a cloud by the high winds,

making it impossible to see anything.

In such a whiteout, it is extremely difficult

to tell which way is up, let alone see the road ahead.

The strong winds and cold temperatures

that go with blizzards can combine

to create another danger: the windchill.

Even if temperatures are already subzero,

windchill can make the apparent temperature plummet,

making it feel as cold as -50 degrees Celsius.

It’s terrible.

I can’t believe that I’m out here, but I am,

because I have to go to work and I’m a responsible adult now.

That’s what I’m supposed to do. But it’s super cold.

And as you can see, I’m still trying to catch my breath.

Expose yourself to this degree of windchill

during a blizzard, and some terrible things

will happen to your body.

If a strong blizzard is forecast,

or if you’re caught in a blizzard...

So first of all, make absolutely sure

that you are really well dressed.

So put as many layers on as you can.

Because it’s not only the snow, really, it is the wind,

and the windchill factor associated with it.

So this is really what makes you lose heat,

body heat, really quickly.

Bundle up, layer up. Bundle up, cover up.

If you’ve got to look ridiculous, look ridiculous.

But stay warm. Keep that wind off of your skin.

To stay healthy,

we need to maintain

a core body temperature

of 37 degrees Celsius.

A drop of just 2 degrees

can quickly cause serious problems.

It’s at this time that hypothermia will set in,

triggering symptoms like constant shivering,

tiredness and fast breathing.

Drop below the 32-degree Celsius mark

and you will begin to experience poor coordination,

slurred speech, confusion and a clear lack of judgment.

At this point,

your breathing will start to slow.

If eventually your temperature

falls to below 28 degrees Celsius,

your body will stop shivering.

This is a very bad sign,

as shivering is the body’s way of trying to keep you alive.

Due to the confusion,

you may not even realize what’s happening to you.

Bizarrely, many victims of hypothermia

will start to feel as though they are burning up.

This is because the muscles have grown tired,

and let the warmer blood from the core

stream back to the skin.

Blizzards can bring chaos to vast swathes of land.

Power outages may occur

if lines are brought down by fallen trees,

by the sheer weight of ice and snow.

Water pipes freeze

and the supply of fuel can be disrupted.

There have been many deadly blizzards throughout the world.

In 1993, a blizzard in the U.S.

dubbed "the storm of the century"

killed over 200 people.

At its height,

the storm stretched thousands of kilometers

from Honduras in Central America,

all the way to Canada.

It resulted in the loss of power

to over 10 million households.

The storm was so widespread

that it affected an estimated 40 percent

of the American population.

Even worse, in terms of the number of casualties,

was a blizzard that struck Iran in 1972,

where 4000 lives were lost

when a shocking eight meters of snow fell for over a week,

making it the deadliest blizzard

to have occurred anywhere in the world.

Two towns were completely buried

with their entire populations killed.

So how exactly does a destructive blizzard form?

You need warm air moving in,

and you need cold air moving in.

So specifically thinking about the continental United States,

you need low-pressure areas, you need high winds,

and you need cold mass of air moving down south.

The low pressures are right the way

across the Central Plains of America.

They’re very common.

The supply of cold air? From Canada principally.

I mean, the prairies,

but also maybe further north, such as Greenland,

and of course, even the Arctic.

The place that supplies the cold air

is often the Canadian prairies.

This flat, open region doesn’t hold heat very well,

and is completely snow-covered in winter.

It gets very little sun during the short winter days,

and because it’s so far north,

what little sunlight there is comes in at a shallow angle

and has little heating effect.

The Rocky Mountains provide a geographical feature

that also plays an important role.

What happens is if the jet stream

actually moves over an obstacle like the Rockies,

there is a concept which we call "conservation of vorticity."

And vorticity is essentially

a description of how fast air rotates.

And so if air moves over a mountain range,

or whatever obstacle, it gets kind of squeezed.

And when you squeeze air, it’s a bit like an ice skater,

air starts to swirl faster.

And if it does that, it starts to bend,

and that bending happens in the wake of the Rocky Mountains.

This bending is literally an expression

of low-pressure activity.

So that is not only what we call a trough,

which is like lower pressure

and more active weather in general,

but it also provides the conditions

for smaller low-pressure systems.

And those that are associated with blizzards to form.

Blizzards are usually associated in people’s minds

with heavy, fresh snowfall.

We’re getting off a little bit early. Uh...

Trying to beat the storm, expecting 2 feet. So, uh...

It’s a gorgeous day in New York. No complaints.

That’s it. Work hard, play hard.

But that is not the only way

that blizzards can occur.

In the Midwest of the United States,

ground blizzards can strike,

and they require little or no snowfall whatsoever.

Ground blizzards occur when ferocious winds whip up snow

that is already on the ground.

Ground blizzards pose such grave danger,

because they happen immediately after

unseasonably warm air temperatures.

This can give people a false sense of security.

Despite the fact that there is snow on the ground,

they may leave home without proper winter clothing.

But this strangely warm weather may not last long.

If it is followed by an Arctic cold front,

it can lead to a sudden drop in temperature,

with winds gusting up to 100 kilometers per hour.

Such strong winds will rapidly stir up any snow on the ground

leading to whiteout conditions.

These blizzards are so lethal

because of the cold air temperatures

that follow behind the Arctic front.

Anyone stranded in a car,

or forced to walk outside,

is at risk of serious frostbite,

hypothermia or even death.

In the United States,

the winter of 2009 to 2010

was defined by snowstorms of historic proportions.

Millions of Americans battled with unusual cold,

flooding, mudslides

and blizzards on an astonishing scale.

That winter saw snow

in each of the 48 continental United States.

Not even the Florida Panhandle escaped the icy grip.

But how did the cold weather manage to reach so far south?

So we have like a large-scale setup,

which is associated with the jet stream.

So this is really the waviness of the jet stream itself.

And in those cases where this waviness is very amplified...

So, what happens is that the cold air

can then drag down all the way to the U.S.,

and even Florida.

And that’s a really huge reserve of cold air

which is just dragged down south.

And at the boundary between this cold air

and the warm air to the south of the jet,

there’s a lot of potential to form these smaller cyclones,

these smaller low-pressure systems,

and that’s the ones that are then associated with blizzards.

After the February storm,

snow blanketed 68 percent of the nation.

It was the first time many in the southern states

had ever seen snow.

The freezing cold extended as far south as Miami,

which had only ever reported snow once before, in 1977.

The winter season began with a blizzard in the Midwest,

beginning on the 7th of December

and lasting three days.

That blizzard caused the entire state of Iowa

to grind to a halt.

A second storm before Christmas

deposited up to half a meter of snow on the east coast,

from North Carolina, all the way up to Boston.

Then over the Christmas holidays,

yet another snowstorm spanned the Midwest,

from Texas to North Dakota.

December snowfall records were set

in many American cities, including Oklahoma City,

Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

But the worst was still to come.

Two blizzards struck the mid-Atlantic,

back-to-back between the 5th and 11th of February.

Rated a major category three storm

on the Northeast Snow Impact Scale,

"Snowmageddon," as it became known,

was the seventh worst blizzard in U.S. history.

Before the winter of 2009 and 2010,

you’d have been hard-pushed to describe Washington, D.C.

as a particularly snowy place.

But all that was to change

when ferociously cold wind and snow

took hold of the nation’s capital.

The entire east coast of America

braced itself for the worst that winter could throw at it.

The extreme weather was exceptionally well predicted.

People got ready to dig in and stocked up on essentials,

though there were some who waited too long

and found their grocery stores empty.

So now imagine we can predict a blizzard four days in advance,

as opposed to two days in advance.

So really, those extra two days,

which is two decades of weather forecast improvement,

they really help.

Not only the people at the ground

who have to plan their holidays,

who have to plan their businesses,

but also the policymakers,

the city managers, to prepare.

For two days,

on the 5th and 6th of February, 2010,

the capital was caught in the vicious grip

of a ferocious blizzard.

High winds and extraordinary snowfall

continued across the region

late on Friday evening and Saturday.

It caused death and chaos,

with parts of the region

buried under half a meter of snow.

Snowfall records were broken at all three area airports,

with Dulles Airport in Washington

setting an astonishing single snowstorm record

of 82 centimeters.

At its brutal peak,

the federal government was closed for almost a week.

And both Virginia and Maryland declared a state of emergency.

Snow was falling across a swathe

of the northeastern United States,

from Southern Indiana,

eastward through Pennsylvania to New York City,

and south down the New Jersey coast,

through Delaware to Washington.

Authorities blamed the storm

for hundreds of accidents and deaths.

Two hundred thousand people were left without electricity

due to downed power lines.

Flights were canceled

at the Washington-Baltimore area’s three main airports,

and at Philadelphia International Airport,

where a reported 68 centimeters of snow

had fallen by 1 p.m.

Rail and bus services were also suspended.

Delaware Governor Jack Markell declared a state of emergency

and ordered all vehicles off the roads by 10 p.m.

Because of the sheer quantity of snow,

the clear-up after the storm was an enormous challenge.

In addition to the normal slow-going tasks

of clearing streets, rails, runways

and pavements full of snow,

numerous trees and power lines which had crashed to the ground

also had to be dealt with.

Power was out for about 200,000 people,

and it would be five days before it returned for many.

The sheer weight of snow

caused structural damage to larger buildings.

A hangar at Dulles Airport collapsed,

as did several churches and fire stations across the area.

Anything with a flat roof

couldn’t stand up to the volume of snow stacked on top of it.

The D.C. Metro system and train services were also badly hit.

All area airports remained down for up to three days.

There was an estimated 500,000 tons of snow to clear

in Virginia alone.

In some locations,

there was simply nowhere left to put it.

In many areas, special construction equipment

had to be brought in to remove the snow.

But for a few,

the crippling snow

presented an opportunity for winter sports.

Snowball fights cropped up across parts of the city,

with perhaps the largest being

a 2000-person melee in Dupont Circle.

In an average winter,

Washington receives about 40 centimeters of snow.

That amount fell in less than 24 hours

on two separate occasions.

It took days before some residents

were finally dug out from the snowstorms.

And that blizzard came less than two months

after the December storm

which had dumped over 40 centimeters of snow

on the capital.

Snowfalls like that were considered a rare event

in the D.C. area.

Now they had occurred twice in one winter.

In fact, Washington, D.C.’s

final seasonal snowfall total of 1.4 meters

beat the previous record,

which had stood since 1899.

But the winter was not over.

After a brief respite,

the chaos of early February

was followed later in the month by a two-day snowstorm,

that was as powerful as a hurricane.

This time, it was New York City that bore the brunt.

The battering winds and deep snow

forced schools and public buildings to close,

and left more than a million homes and businesses

without power.

The heavy snow forced New York State Troopers

to close roads.

At JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports,

2300 flights were grounded

as airlines posted major delays.

That winter, Baltimore’s old record of 1.5 meters,

set in the winter of 1995 to ’96,

was obliterated after nearly 2 meters fell

over the 2009 to 2010 season.

Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.,

beat the record snowfall that had stood for over 120 years.

The 2010 Snowmageddon: really extreme climate event,

really extreme blizzard.

You have this body of cold air over Greenland,

which started to move south.

You’ve got the jet stream bringing in warmer,

wetter weather from the eastern Pacific.

And when these air bodies collided,

then, of course, you started getting

these severe blizzard conditions.

But there was another powerful contributor

to this terrifying blizzard: El Niño.

El Niño is a regular feature,

which occurs semi-cyclically in the Pacific,

where you have unusually warm surface water

in the Pacific forming.

The warm water will create a moist, warm air,

which will move across the western United States.

And then it will start to get

sort of sucked into the low-pressure system.

Because it contains so much water,

it has the potential then, as it cools,

to drop a lot of snow on the U.S.

as it meets the colder air coming down from the north.

Although blizzards are frequent events

in mountainous regions,

they rarely strike cities

on the scale they did during Snowmageddon.

That was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

But in January 2015,

it looked as if it was going to happen all over again.

Computer models, run by different agencies

in different countries,

were all saying the same thing:

that the northeastern U.S. was going to be in the grip

of a potentially historic blizzard.

But unlike blizzards that’d occurred a few decades ago,

which often struck without warning,

this storm was forecast seven days ahead of time.

Computer models have enormously improved in recent years.

They’re fed by satellite data, and radar data,

so that they feed into models,

and they give very good patterns,

which then people can use these patterns to predict

what is likely to happen to the weather system.

These models are allowing people to, early on,

try and make decisions about what is likely to happen.

And of course, as a library of knowledge has built up,

you have more confidence

in what you think the outcomes are going to be,

of these emerging patterns you see.

Every decade, we can predict the weather

with one more day in advance.

This is an improvement which really helps to save life.

And goes to show how important this type of research is.

On the 20th to the 22nd of January,

before the storm had even occurred,

the governors of 11 states

and the mayor of Washington, D.C.,

declared a state of emergency in anticipation

of significant snowfall and blizzard conditions.

But why was this blizzard expected to be so bad?

So the meteorological indicators are,

again, sort of the emerging,

intensifying of the low pressure,

especially as the jet stream gets sucked into that,

and the move of high pressure further south,

maybe bringing in cold air into the southern latitudes,

more southerly latitudes.

A swirling vortex

off the east coast sent huge amounts of snow inland,

driven by sometimes hurricane force winds,

pelting Washington, D.C., Philadelphia

and New York City with well over half a meter of snow.

Based on satellite imagery,

the storm was soaking up moisture

from as far south as the Bahamas,

and as far east as the Gulf Stream waters

of the Atlantic Ocean.

Up to 85 million people

were in the path of this looming monster.

That meant that one in every four Americans

were impacted by a blizzard or winter storm warning.

Ten eastern U.S. states, as well as Washington, D.C.,

all declared a state of emergency.

This allowed them to tap into the resources

they would need to cope with the impending disaster.

In Washington,

Mayor Muriel Bowser spared no words

in a warning to residents.

She insisted that the oncoming storm

had life-and-death implications,

and advised everyone not to drive, or even walk,

but instead take shelter and stay off the roads.

When it finally arrived,

the storm lived up to expectations.

Tens of millions of people from New York.

to the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia

were caught in a deadly mix of devastating winds

and vast amounts of falling snow.

Dewey Beach in Delaware

and Langley Air Force Base in Virginia

recorded winds of over 120 kilometers per hour.

Even in Georgia,

a state where winters are usually unremarkable,

there was snowfall of over 15 centimeters.

There were 48 deaths related to the storm,

and thousands of homes were left without power.

But in low-lying areas along the coast,

they didn’t just have to deal with record-breaking snowfall.

The hurricane-force winds caused storm surges

that sent water rushing in from the sea.

The New Jersey and Delaware shorelines

were pounded with by 6-meter waves,

and a storm surge of up to 1.5 meters

sent water levels to all-time highs in some locations.

As floodwaters turned streets

on the Jersey Shore into rivers,

residents were reminded of the terrible days

of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

There were record coastal flood levels

recorded at both Cape May,

the city and seaside resort in New Jersey,

and Lewes, on the opposite side of the Delaware Bay.

All along the coast, the sea was invading the land.

At Dewey Beach,

the hurricane-force winds caused a surge

that washed huge swathes of the shoreline out to sea.

Four and a half meters of beach were gouged out by the storm.

Further inland, many people perished

driving in the ferocious conditions.

They were either caught out by the storm

or had ignored the warnings not to venture out.

In Pennsylvania,

a passing snowplow buried a car

in which a man then apparently died of asphyxiation.

Some people made the mistake

of continuing to run their engines to keep warm,

even though their exhausts were blocked by snow...

allowing poisonous fumes to enter the car.

Not even the emergency services

were safe from the shocking conditions.

For three cities,

it was the biggest snowstorm ever recorded.

Baltimore, a major seaport in Maryland,

saw 74 centimeters of fresh snow.

While in Pennsylvania,

Allentown had to deal with 80 centimeters.

But the place that got more snow than anywhere

was in Shepherdstown,

a town overlooking the Potomac River in West Virginia,

which was buried in well over a meter of snow.

It was also the first time

that a single storm dumped more than 60 centimeters

on New York City.

New Yorkers who went to bed on Friday

expecting to wake up to few inches of snow,

drew their curtains on a raging blizzard.

It forced Mayor Bill de Blasio

to order a travel ban on city streets,

something that hardly ever happens,

meaning that anyone caught driving would be arrested.

All public amenities were ordered to shut.

Broadway theaters went dark.

Restaurants closed.

Shops shuttered.

A deathly hush descended

on the most populous city in the United States.

Nearly 13,000 flights were canceled.

At the height of the blizzard,

a quarter of a million people were without power.

The storm looked so vicious from space

that NASA astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted pictures

from the International Space Station.

Finally, after battering the towns and cities

of the east coast, the storm swirled out to sea,

leaving behind huge accumulations of snow and ice

all the way from Virginia in the south

up to New York in the north.

The Weather Service recorded that 68 centimeters of snow

had blanketed Central Park in New York City.

Sunday was a day of transition.

The blizzard with zero visibility

gave way to a bright, clear sky.

For officials and residents

who had hunkered down for two days

of unrelenting snow and wind,

it was time to start the cleanup.

And for others who’d been cooped up indoors

for two days,

it was a chance to enjoy the fun side of winter.

But a day of enjoyment for many

gave way to the start of the working week,

and the headache of commuting.

New York City, where Mayor De Blasio

announced that schools were to open,

faced the challenge of picking up busloads of schoolchildren

in streets piled high with snowdrifts.

In Washington, D.C., the Metro system,

for the most part, was still shut.

Residents in some neighborhoods in northwest D.C.

were effectively cut off

behind more than half a meter of snow

on unplowed streets.

The leadership of the House of Representatives,

scheduled to convene on Monday,

said that no votes would be held

in the week following the blizzard.

In Maryland,

where two major highways had been closed to all traffic,

Mayor Larry Hogan announced that the state

would ask for federal disaster relief aid

and warned that clearing the snow

would be a long-haul project.

In Baltimore, the mayor cautioned

that she could not give an end date

for when the streets would be cleared.

But as with many of Mother Nature’s deadly disasters,

there is often a benign side to extreme weather events.

The snow provides much-needed water.

During the winter of 2018,

blizzards and half a meter of snow hit Moscow,

and was welcomed by agricultural experts.

That’s because a heavy blanket of snow

is beneficial for wheat crops.

It protects the developing plant

from the harsh cold of winter.

The extent to which snow insulates

depends on its depth.

Temperatures underneath a layer of snow

increase by about 1 degree Celsius

for each 2.5 centimeters depth of snow.

Because the soil also gives off some heat,

the temperature at the soil surface

can be much warmer than the air temperature.

When growth of the wheat plants restarts in spring,

the melting snow is also a good source of water.

The end of winter

doesn’t necessarily signal the end

of extreme cold weather phenomena.

The early summer of 2013

brought extreme weather to Europe.

In June, there were floods,

followed by a heat wave,

as Central Europe experienced soaring temperatures.

In late July,

thermometers in the German city of Rheinfelden

peaked at 38.6 degrees Celsius.

But, bizarrely,

the extreme heat brought with it

a swathe of destruction caused by hailstones,

and on an unprecedented scale.

Ice balls cannoned down on an area of central Germany.

These monster hailstones

measured in at up to 12 centimeters.

They caused 2.8 billion euros’ worth of damage.

The most devastating hailstone event in Germany’s history,

and the world’s biggest insurance loss of 2013.

So how does ice do that much damage in the summer months?

In fact, how does the ice form at all?

On a hot summer’s day,

the ground will be warmed by the sun,

and any moisture will evaporate into the air above it.

This air will be warm.

And so as it rises into the cooler atmosphere,

the moisture will condense and form clouds,

creating thunderstorms.

We’ve all seen these huge, towering cumulonimbus clouds,

10 to 15 kilometers high.

And they have a huge updraft.

These updrafts suck water droplets

through the freezing zone.

At this point, the water droplet starts to supercool.

And then to become ice, and then start to accrete more,

and more ice to it.

They sort of grow a bit like an onion,

in layers,

and eventually, once it becomes so heavy

that the updraft can no longer support it,

it then comes crashing down to Earth.

Some hailstones can be very heavy.

They can be moving at very high speeds,

over 170 kilometers per hour when they impact the Earth.

Hailstones are measured according to their diameter.

But it is easier to estimate its size

by comparing it to everyday items.

To date, the largest hailstone recorded in the U.S.

fell in Vivian, South Dakota on the 23rd of July, 2010.

The largest hailstone recorded in the U.S.

was 20 centimeters in diameter,

weighing about sort of 900 grams.

So you know, quite a sizable chunk of ice.

That’s an officially recorded hailstone of that size.

And if that doesn’t terrify you,

then imagine it hitting the ground

at 170 kilometers per hour.

The heaviest hailstone ever measured

is thought to be one in Bangladesh,

over a kilogram in weight.

It occurred during a hailstorm in 1986, I think it was.

And that hailstorm actually killed over 90 people.

Luckily,

the hailstones that fell on Germany

were not of those proportions,

and although they caused a huge amount of damage,

thankfully, no one was killed.

But Germany is no stranger to extreme winter weather,

each and every year people are killed in blizzards,

usually in the German Alps.

On Sunday, the 13th of July, 2008,

a summer blizzard caused tragedy in the Bavarian Alps,

where 550 people taking part in a mountain run

were caught out by a freak blizzard.

Competitors were running up the slopes of the Zugspitze,

Germany’s highest peak.

Many were dressed only in shorts and T-shirts

when the temperature suddenly plummeted to below freezing.

With winds gusting at 80 kilometers per hour,

the windchill and low visibility from driving snow

had turned a picturesque mountain into a disaster zone.

The first distress call

reached mountain rescue in the valley bellow

just before midday.

But for two men, help arrived too late.

They sadly died,

while a further six people were taken to hospital.

But it isn’t only in Germany’s mountains

that blizzards can kill.

On the 16th and 17th of December, 2010,

much of Germany was paralyzed in the grip of a winter storm

that claimed the lives of three people,

caused hundreds of accidents,

and left thousands stranded in perilous conditions.

A colossal winter storm system

came in hard and fast,

catching many people by surprise.

As temperatures were sent plummeting

to minus-12 degrees Celsius,

30 centimeters of snow fell in a matter of hours,

bringing chaos not usually seen

in that part of the world.

Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s second largest hub,

was forced to close while emergency services

battled to clear its snowbound runways.

One thousand passengers were stranded

in the terminal building overnight.

There was chaos for drivers,

with most of Germany’s road network in gridlock.

At the German-French border near Freiburg,

hundreds of lorries were stuck for hours,

when French authorities

closed the motorways due to heavy snow.

The Red Cross handed out blankets

and hot soup to the drivers.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state,

traffic congestion extended for more than 185 kilometers.

Two hundred and fifty-one accidents occurred

as a result of the winter storm,

injuring 19 people.

But, seven years later,

it wasn’t only Germany that felt the icy blast of winter.

It was the entire continent of Europe.

Winds which became known as "The Beast from the East"

transported freezing temperatures and blizzards

from Russia into Germany,

France and the U.K.

It was warmer in the North Pole than it was in much of Europe,

as both the north Pacific and north Atlantic Oceans

fed milder air into the Arctic.

In February 2018,

the so-called "Beast from the East" hit Europe.

And what did happen in that case is that in mid-February,

a really cold air reserve started to form in Siberia,

which isn’t uncommon for that time of the year.

And then, opposite to what you would usually expect,

when the circulation

essentially pushes the air from west to east,

in that case, the cold air slowly moved to the west,

and started to impact Europe more and more.

And ended up as a pretty severe late winter cold event,

which hit almost all of Europe.

The physics of what causes these sorts of storms

is that you have what’s called a polar vortex,

which is a vortex of-- Of low pressure,

which is sitting over the Arctic.

In a sense, sort of containing the cold air.

But as that vortex weakens, it will split.

It can split into two, quite typically.

One over Greenland and Canada.

One over Siberia.

And, actually, if the vortex weakens further,

it will split into even more.

And, actually, that will start to push

the jet stream further south.

And actually then, the cold air

will move down into lower latitudes.

So this is what was happening with the "Beast from the East,"

and at the same time, you’re having--

For the United Kingdom and Europe.

you’re having a warmer air moving in from the southwest,

meeting this colder air coming, as this polar vortex weakened.

And you have these cold fronts

moving in from continental Europe.

Much of Europe was blanketed in snow,

as icy conditions spread as far south

as the Mediterranean coast,

carrying freezing winds and accompanying blizzards

across the continent.

Temperatures plummeted as low as minus-30 degrees Celsius.

Many in the Netherlands

referred to the uncommonly cold weather

as the "Siberian Bear."

Not even countries

in the normally mild south of the continent

were spared blizzard conditions.

The monster freeze

brought unheard-of snowfalls to parts of Spain,

as well as the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Capri.

In Rome’s St. Peter’s Square,

priests and seminarians from the Vatican

threw snowballs at each other.

And near the Colosseum,

students could be seen skiing down the historic Oppian Hill.

Snowfall covered the northern Italian cities

of Venice, Milan,

Turin and Florence,

and reached as far south as Naples.

In Ireland and Scotland,

the highest red weather warning alerts

of "a risk to life" were issued,

and people were told to stay at home.

Up to 40 centimeters of snow fell

in higher areas of Scotland,

and hundreds of vehicles

were stuck on a Scottish road overnight,

stranding some motorists for 18 hours.

England experienced blizzards

and some of the coldest temperatures for three decades.

Hundreds of schools were closed,

and there were delays on roads, railways,

and at airports.

Even Switzerland, a country well used to blizzards,

was taken aback by the sheer volume of snow

and the freezing temperatures.

The airport in Geneva was forced to close.

Temperatures dropped to minus-20 degrees Celsius

in some parts of Germany,

while the Zugspitze, the country’s highest peak,

was gripped in a record-breaking low

of minus-30.4 degrees Celsius.

In the Black Forest region of southern Germany,

the 97-meter-high Todtnau Waterfall was frozen solid.

In the end, the most important part of risk

is actually not the hazard.

And I think that we are addressing vulnerability

in two ways: on the one hand,

we can be far better informed and forewarned

about blizzards through the increase of science,

satellite observation radar.

But also, I think, you know, the understanding

of the importance of vulnerability

means that we’re looking at how we build social capital.

Who are the vulnerable people,

and how can we help in extreme events?

Many people ask,

"What’s the role of climate change?"

So do, like, these winter storms

become even more frequent in the future?

Which is counterintuitive, right?

So there are a couple of suggestions and discussions

in the research community that do, indeed,

link to an increased frequency of these kind of storms,

especially, like, snowstorms.

And there’s a couple reasons for that.

First of all, if you do have a snowstorm

in a warmed-up world--

A world that is 1, 2 or 3 degrees warmer.

you tend to have more moisture supply.

It doesn’t matter whether it is winter or summer,

whether there is super frozen water in the high atmosphere,

or winds and freezing temperatures

at the ground level.

Blizzards can occur in any number of scenarios.

Mother Nature has proven to us yet again

the chilling and unexpected ways

she can twist the elements to bring us...

Deadly Disasters.