Spring has arrived?
Seems not: "An unusual sequence of cold waves in March"
This week, Israeli citizens will move to daylight saving time, but the hot season refuses to come and meanwhile a cold wave prevails throughout the country.
Meteorology experts estimate that the unusual cold will continue and provide a glimpse of other days, also in March, with sights of snow
Yoav Itiel
21/03/2022
Monday, 21 March 2022, 14:28 Updated: 14:42
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Snow throughout the country (Tamir Engel, Mika Shemka, Yoav Itiel)
On the weekend, on the night between Thursday and Friday, at 2:00 a.m., we will be required to move the hands clockwise one hour forward to 3:00 p.m.
Moving to daylight saving time until October 30th.
But the outdoors still does not feel like summer, the cold refuses to give way to the familiar heat in the country in the spring, and it is probably one of the longest winters we have experienced in recent years.
"The cold wave is expected to continue in the coming days and when it is over, we will be able to finally assess the degree of its abnormality. It also appears that the entire month of March is expected to be one of the coldest since the beginning of the measurements, but not necessarily the coldest," says Walla!
Dr. Amos Porat, director of climatic services at the Meteorological Service, "is probably not as cold as March 1953, but we can only check this towards the end of the month."
"Moving the clock is a beautiful, but artificial-anecdote, and it often happens that you switch to daylight saving time and it's still cool and it's raining. He points out that since March 11, there has been a cold wave in our area with below-average temperatures, during the day at 7 to 8 degrees in the mountains and inland and at 5 to 6 degrees in the coastal plain. At night the temperatures are below average at 5 to 6 Degrees in the mountains and at 4 to 5 degrees in the other areas.
More on Walla!
Towards the switch to daylight saving time: why do we actually move the hour forward?
To the full article
Weather forecast for the next few days
Temperatures today (Monday) will rise slightly, but will continue to be lighter than usual for the season.
During the night it will be partly cloudy and cold, and there may be drizzle to light rain in the north and center of the country.
Light snow will fall on the northern mountain peaks.
Tomorrow it will continue to rain locally, mostly light, and it will be colder than usual for the season.
During the night the rain will intensify, and will continue to fall alongside thunderstorms also on Wednesday, when snow is expected on Mount Hermon and the high peaks of the northern mountains.
On Wednesday at noon the rain will weaken, and during the night it will gradually intensify again.
On Thursday, it rained intermittently accompanied by thunderstorms in the north and center of the country, and local rain is expected in the northern Negev.
The snow will continue to fall on Mount Hermon and the high peaks of the northern mountains.
There are fears of flooding in the Judean Desert and the Dead Sea, and will continue to be just normal for the season.
"The whole business can change."
Winter weather on the beach (Photo: Reuven Castro)
A comparison of the second ten of March this year (11 to 20 of the month), to averages of similar periods in the past in March in several stations, shows that the current ten is exceptional - the stations tested (Beit Dagan, Safed, Mount Canaan, Jerusalem and Beersheba) did not have ten cold episodes. In March for many years: in Beit Dagan and Safed Mount Canaan there were no similar chapters since the beginning of the measurements (in Beit Dagan the measurements began in 1962 and in Safed Mount Canaan in 1939).
In Jerusalem, where measurements have been available since 1867, there were a number of similar episodes of ten cold in a similar way only in the distant past (1886, 1894, 1907, 1910 and 1928), and even then only with respect to minimum temperatures.
Beersheba had a similar cold in 1948 (the first of March of that year).
The measurements in Be'er Sheva began in 1921.
Even snow in March is not completely impossible in the Land of Israel.
Thus, at the beginning of March 1980, tens of centimeters of snow fell in the mountains, and on April 13-14 (!) 1977, tens of centimeters of snow accumulated from a height of about 1,000 meters on Mount Hermon.
In 1967, three months before the Six-Day War on March 26-27, snow piled up on the ground in the mountains, even in Jerusalem that had not yet been put together.
In 1953 - on 22-24 snow piled up in the mountains to a depth of 12 cm, also on Mount Canaan in Safed.
Even snow is not completely impossible.
Kibbutz Malkia, March (Photo: Official website, Idan Barnea, The Society for the Protection of Nature)
"What is unusual here is the continuity and continuity of the cold days," explains Dr. Noam Halfon of the Meteorological Service. That we got over a streak of about two cold weeks.
There have been cold events this season in the past, but it usually comes as a rapid cooling followed by rapid warming but not as a sustained winter feeling like this year.
"There are many disagreements about the date of the beginning of the seasons in Israel and even the question of the existence of four seasons in Israel and there is no unequivocal answer to the question," notes Dr. Halfon. The beginning of April on average is a good starting point.
If you still try to determine the spring season on its own, its beginning is less clear, "according to Halfon,"
On the other hand, according to the accepted astronomical division, it begins on the spring equinox mentioned yesterday, March 20, and lasts until June 20.
He adds, however, "from a broad historical perspective we see that this is not a permanent legality and that if we look further back we find periods in which the third third of the month (having a meteorological-astronomical consensus on being in the spring) is the rainiest in the month."
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