Snowfall and heavy rain are hammering Europe and bringing deadly floods to the Balkans. Hundreds of families have been evacuated from their homes in Albania and one woman drowned after being swept away by floodwaters, the Associated Press reports. Snow continues to blanket parts of Italy and Spain, where hundreds of motorists were trapped on roadways. Two homeless people were killed after northern Spain was hit by a second wave of snow on Friday. The Associated Press reports that the persistent flooding in the Balkans has forced the evacuation of at least 600 families and killed thousands of livestock. In Croatia and Slovenia, heavy snowfall snarled traffic over the weekend and caused authorities to place travel bans on major roadways. Days ago, eastern Macedonia was placed under a state of emergency along with portions of Greece, Euronews reports. The BBC reports that travelers in Spain were caught off guard by a dump of snow that totaled over a foot. Spanish emergency services rescued over 200 drivers trapped on roads, but many others remained stuck in their cars.
Triggering this persistent heavy snow and rain is an atmospheric clog. "The pattern responsible for this is called a rex block, a classic blocking pattern in the mid-upper levels of the atmosphere," says weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman. "High pressure aloft centered over Scotland has trapped a massive, lumbering area of low pressure aloft centered over Spain and the Mediterranean Sea." As that first system withers, a powerful cold front has nosedived southward from Scandinavia into central and eastern Europe this past weekend.
http://www.weather.com/news/news/europe-snowstorm-floods-spain-italy-croatia-slovenia-albania
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