The contrast in weather this week between the U.S. and Europe is striking. April-like warmth is breaking records and sparking severe thunderstorms here, while bitter cold and snow spread across several countries on the other side of the Atlantic.
The Guardian has reported that at least six people have died as brutal winter weather hit Europe hard this week. Half of those deaths were the result of traffic accidents in southwest France that also left 15 people injured.
"It's important that people plan ahead, consider their travel plans and work from home if that's an option," cautioned Scottish transport minister Fiona Hyslop, per Journal de Bruxelles.
The harsh winter conditions forced nearly 40% of flights at the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to be canceled after snow and ice fell on France's capital. Ventusky, an interactive weather visualization platform, reported that nearly 80% of Europe's surface had snow cover as of Thursday, the fourth-largest extent in the past two decades and the largest since 2019.
Temperatures tumbled well below average across much of Europe. The mercury fell to just 10 degrees in Britain this week as the cold forced the closure of hundreds of schools. Italy was also dealing with bitterly cold January temperatures. The Veneto region in the northeast part of the country saw temperatures drop dramatically this week. Marcesina fell to 10 degrees below zero.
Back on the other side of the Atlantic, most of the U.S. is in the middle of a massive, record-breaking January thaw, with temperatures soaring 25 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.
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The anomalous warmth is eating away at snow cover here. Snow cover has dropped nearly 4% over the past five days. As of Thursday morning, just over 24% of the contiguous U.S. had snow cover, according to the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, compared to nearly 28% reported on Jan. 3.
The unseasonable warmth is expected to help fuel severe thunderstorms Thursday through Sunday. Almost 27 million people across portions of at least a dozen states in the central and southern U.S. face a marginal to slight risk, levels one and two out of five, respectively, for severe thunderstorms, according to the Storm Prediction Center. The SPC outlooks for Friday and Saturday continue to highlight the threat of severe thunderstorms for several states in the South and Mid-Atlantic.
Scientists say the weather whiplash patterns like the one now being played out in the northern hemisphere should come as no surprise, as our overheating planet disrupts the jet stream. Scientists who studied a devastating flooding event that killed at least 45 people in eastern Kentucky in July of 2022 think our warming world is impacting the waviness of the jet stream.
"As the planet warms, we predict that the land-ocean contrast of atmospheric heating enhances the meandering in the jet stream and that implies more of these extreme weather events, such as what we have experienced this summer in Kentucky," John Wettlaufer, a Yale professor and co-author of the study, told the Yale News.
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A wavier jet stream can trigger prolific rain-producing thunderstorms since it is able to draw significant moisture from the Gulf. Kentucky was impacted again in 2025 by a change in the jet stream pattern. The state had its eighth-wettest January-through-November period on record. A slow-moving and meandering jet stream pattern contributed to a record-setting heat dome that toppled records from Texas to as far north as Canada during early summer in 2023.
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