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Beast from the East - Coggle Diagram
Beast from the East
Secondary effects
Hundreds of motorists on the M80 near Glasgow were stuck for up to 13 hours, with some spending the night in their cars and others abandoning their vehicles. Around 1,000 vehicles were at a standstill, tailing back eight miles in both directions.
Thousands of schools were closed across the UK, including more than 125 in North Yorkshire and more than 330 across Kent, and hospital operations were cancelled.
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British Airways cancelled hundreds of short-haul flights from Heathrow, and London City Airport also cancelled many services.
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Responses
Red weather warnings were issued covering parts of Scotland, Devon, Somerset, and South Wales, prompting Devon and Cornwall police to declare a major incident. The red weather warning was just the third in seven years.
The Environment Agency issued flood warnings for parts of Cornwall’s south coast. Residents were told to expect tides to be around 400 mm.
The Royal Air Force was drafted in to help relief efforts in snow-hit Lincolnshire. Ten RAF vehicles and their crews transported doctors and stranded patients after local police admitted they struggled to cope.
High on the Pennines on the M62, the military provided support rescuing vehicles.
In Edinburgh, soldiers were deployed to help transport about 200 NHS clinical and support staff to and from the Western General Hospital and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Key facts
The 'Beast from the East' is a phrase used to describe cold and wintry conditions in the UK during late February and early March 2018, meeting storm Emma which pushed up from the south bringing heavy snow and gusts of more than 60mph.
Temperatures dropped to -10ºC; the UK had not experienced such low temperatures since 1991, 27 years ago.
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On 1st March 2018, the weather front brought blizzards, gales and sleet as it hit the cold air brought down by the Beast from the East.
Causes
The Beast from the East was caused by a change to the northern polar jet stream, which twisted its direction unexpectedly, drawing in cold air to the UK from the east.
At this time of year, there is usually a polar vortex – a large mass of cold air – in the upper atmosphere, also known as the stratosphere. This vortex is what causes air to move from west to east usually. However, there was a considerable rise in air temperature of around 50°C 18 miles above the Earth in the North Pole. Sudden stratospheric warming caused a weakening of the jet stream leading to a change in the direction of the winds approaching the UK from west to east to east to west, allowing a cold air mass (polar continental air mass) from Russia to cover The UK.
Under normal circumstances, winters in the UK are mild compared to some places on the same latitude because of the jet stream, a warm air mass travelling across the Atlantic Ocean from Mexico to the UK. However, in February 2018, a meteorological event called stratospheric warming disturbed the jet stream – allowing cold winds from Russia to travel as far as the UK.
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