I put together a monthly report on global climate highlights for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology so I’m interested in any more information anyone can supply about impacts of the unusually cold winter in central Asia, over and above what was mentioned above (e.g. were the power cuts in Dushanbe weather-related, and if so how?).

From the information I’ve seen so far, it looks like the Siberian high was much further south and west than usual in January, which has resulted in abnormally cold conditions (many places 5 degrees or more below normal for the month) in a belt centred on latitude 40N extending all the way from Turkey and Iran across central Asia into northern and western China, offset by abnormally warm (a relative term!) conditions in northern Russia and northern Europe.

Hmmm, I think that depends on which neighborhood in Baghdad,
either Shia or Sunni, one lives in. Generally the Shia neighborhoods have better power access, since the Mahdi and other Shia militias control the distribution of electricity.

In Mosul, the great Iraqi blogger Sunshine (and the Anne Frank of this war), last said they had about two hours of electricity a day, but unlike Baghdad, Mosul is a Sunni-Kurdish city, so likely just government inefficiency-corruption there.

Well, at least Uzbekistan seems to be surviving this bout of Global Cooling better than their neighbors.

And LOL, what happened to the vaunted Global Warming?

Sad thing about the former campaign manager. Perhaps Dostum didn’t fare well in the early primaries?