Hello!

Happy Tuesday.  There is so much breaking news this morning!  Castro resigning, Princess Diana soap opera, Scary Satellite being shot down from space…Politics…it’s non-stop.  Weather is pretty quiet today (insert sigh of relief)…until the next storm system rolls in.   There’s another chance at severe weather later on this week along the Gulf Coast so we’ll keep an eye on that, but for now this weather lady is appreciative of the break.   We’re starting to see some of the storm reports in more details from this past weekend’s tornado outbreak.   The tornado that tore through Prattville Alabama has been classified as an EF 3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with winds of around 150 mph.  It’s path was a quarter of a mile wide.  

And since the U.S. is pretty quiet, I thought I would share a little weather in Greece with you where they are dealing with a rare heavy snow event!

The ancient Acropolis hill is snow-covered in Athens on Monday. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Thanassis Stavrakis

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOVlSyqXQ2_cpNq19s—cVECJ0A

Heavy snowfall left about 200 villages cut off across Greece Monday and forced airport authorities to cancel dozens of flights.

Civil defence authorities were on alert, and problems with power and water supply were reported across the country as Greece was gripped by the second day of a winter storm.

Schools and universities were shut throughout the greater Athens area and in many other parts of Greece. About 200 villages, most on the southern island of Crete, were cut off by the heavy snowfall.

Between 10 and 15 centimetres of snow blanketed the centre of Athens, an unusual occurrence in Greece. Near central Athens’ snow-covered Acropolis, only cars using snow chains could use the roads.

Dozens of international and domestic flights to and from Athens’ airport were cancelled. Temperatures had been forecast to plunge to minus 15 degrees Celsius in parts of northern Greece on Monday.

Heavy snow fell also fell over much of Turkey on Monday, causing traffic accidents, disrupting air transport and closing schools.

At least three weather-related deaths were reported.

Snow was 1.5 metres high in the province of Van in eastern Turkey, and thousands of village roads were blocked off in the region.

Schools across the country were closed on Monday to ease traffic and minimize the risk of accidents.

An elderly man froze to death in a town near the northern city of Giresun, and two homeless people were reported dead in the northwestern cities of Bursa and Tekirdag, local media said.

In Istanbul, where snow was 22 centimetres deep, municipality workers moved homeless people into cheap hotels or shelters.

The Mediterranean resort of Antalya had its first snow in 15 years, the Dogan news agency reported.