Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS

[Joe S2]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095509/Eastern-European-death-toll-hits-150-big-freeze-continues-continent.html

Maybe a little off topic but snow in Rome is history right?  Has some really nice pictures.

[Optimo Principi]

Evocative images, especially the snowfall on the Colosseum. I wonder if they ever had snowfall in Rome during ancient times, statistically I'm sure they did. They would have been very confused. Snowball fights in the forum! Sad to hear of the deaths across the continent though.

[Randygeki(h2)]

Living where it snows allot, its easy for me to forget that some in places, even an inch of snow can cause allot of problems.

[Jochen]

I was in Rome in January AD 1986 when in the night the snow was falling. It was a big desaster! There were no machines for snow shovelling in Rome. They are called from Milano and Torino. For 3 days nothing goes! Only the Mafia works well: In the morning all streets are full of children which waved with Moonboots (boots with thick skin) and snow chains for cars. The problem was that the Romans were not versed in applying them to the wheels! And our hotel was without a central heating. The following day the hotel management placed a small mobile oil heating in our room. But it was funny to see the patres in their long black coats throwing snowballs on the Piazza San Pietro!

Best regards

[gavignano]

Makes me think - was snow ever pictured in any film about ancient rome?
BTW, here in the northeast USA, snow has been scarce in most places. We have had under 6 inches total, we usually would have about 30 by now.....

[mwilson603]

Makes me think - was snow ever pictured in any film about ancient rome?
BTW, here in the northeast USA, snow has been scarce in most places. We have had under 6 inches total, we usually would have about 30 by now.....

I can remember a scene with snow in a film about ancient Romans 

[SC]

It is the 10th day in Vienna with temperatures going under -10 degrees.  It is also ten days that it has been colder here than in my native Ottawa.  While we just got 12 cm snow last night in the hills where I live, there has been far less snow here this winter than is usual.

I can't help thinking of the years the Marcomanni, Quadi et al walked across the Danube to wreak havoc in the south.  The Danube currently flows normally but I wonder how much that is due to modern heat pollution and that fact that it is now so artificially channelled and canalized instead of the much wider and thus slower form it once had.  I don't know if it would have frozen over already or if it would have taken many more weeks of extreme cold....

Shawn

[David Atherton]

This winter here in Ohio has been unusually mild, as it has been for most of the Eastern US. I love snow so it's nice to see someone getting it!

As far as the ancient climate of Classical Europe is concerned, apparently it was a tad warmer than it is now but snow was not unheard of in Rome. The late Classical period saw a cooler climate come in which coincided with the decline of Roman civilization in the West, perhaps one of the many reasons why Rome "fell".

Brian Fagan's book The Long Summer has a great chapter about this cooler period in late antiquity and is a fascinating read overall. I highly recommend it!

[Matt Inglima]

Interesting article with many great pics.  The picture of the man holding his head under those icicles made me shudder. 

[fluffy82]

http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20120217_131

It seems that due to cold, pieces of the Colosseum are tumbling down *again*...
Where is that restauration when you need it?