Cold Weather Kills 14 Across Eastern Europe

Freezing weather has killed at least 14 people throughout eastern Europe as temperatures plummeted over the past few days and are expected to drop even further. Police in Poland said Monday at least 10 people froze to death as the cold weather dropped to minus 26 Celsius. Authorities say until now, the winter in the country had been unusually mild. In central Serbia, three people died from cold exposure over the weekend. And in neighboring Bulgaria, at least one person froze to death. The country declared a "Code Orange" weather alert in most districts. At least two towns are reporting record low temperatures.
Voice of America

Winter has finally arrived, and not just any winter. Cold weather is coming from Siberia, where temperatures have dropped to -50 degree Celsius. This will likely kill many people, mainly in poor areas. Here in Finland temperatures have dropped to -30 degree Celsius. Can't believe than we had plus degrees in December, now super cold. Temperatures are dropping towards next weekend.

Romania also had a Orange Code for 1 day and a couple of people died blocked in a car under the snow..

I'm nowhere near central Europe, but in watching the North American weather, they showed that the cold air is staying way north of us. Alaska's interior is below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, exceptionally cold for them. It appears that the cold air is staying in a certain latitude in the northern hemisphere, which I suppose could be blamed on the jet stream.

Perhaps by keeping the cold air close to the arctic and not spreading it out creates a negative feedback loop in which it just gets colder and colder.

This is good news, NAO-index is going down. North Atlantic Oscillation index was unusually high, and has been that for 4 months already. Negative NAO-index means "normal" winter. In positive NAO North Europe gets mild and rainy weather, when South Europe gets colder than average temperatures and dry weather.

Real Time NAO-index

Lets see where it sets