Many consider this year's winter storm one of the worst storm, as the regions around the world are facing record-breaking temperatures, snowfall and widespread disruption. Winter storms mainly occur in Europe and North America. Winter storm is a weather event with a combination of heavy snow and dangerous wind chills. In December 2024, in the US, a powerful cyclone bomb was struck, unleashing blizzards and freezing temperatures that left parts of Midwest and Northeast buried up to three feet's inside the snow. Cities like Buffalo, Chicago and New York experienced their first record-breaking freezing temperature in decades, resulting in travel disruptions, power outages and many cancelled flights.
In Europe, snowstorms and subzero temperatures created a chaos, especially in the UK and Scandinavia where transportation was extremely affected and many flights were cancelled. Furthermore, North China experienced its coldest winter with temperatures dropping to 40degree Fahrenheit in fifty years causing major havoc in both rural and urban areas. These intense storms have stretched infrastructure to its breaking point, alerting others about the raising frequency of extreme weather events driven by climate change.
Airports in the UK and Germany had to shut down their terminals as snow piled up, further compounding transportation chaos. The extreme storms have pushed the vulnerability of those buildings that were not supposed to withstand these intense situations, demanding urgent improvements for the insurance of more resilience to the growing frequency of these heavy winter storms. Nevertheless, Business across various sectors like agriculture, manufactures are facing slowdowns and closures due to unsafe winter weather conditions.
As of now, policymakers are mainly focusing on building infrastructures that can withstand those intense situations better. In the US and Europe, local governments are investing in more advanced snow removal technologies. Cities are also starting to adapt in more accurate weather forecasting tools, to be prepared for the damages and also allowing for quicker emergency response beforehand. For the long term solution of this impacts, redesigning buildings and transportation facilities with more weather-resistant materials and ensuring that the future infrastructure project accounts for the changing climate.
It is essential for both public and private infrastructures to prioritize climate resilience in their future planning's and developments. By investing in smarter technologies, more weather resilient materials and redesigning critical infrastructures, we can safeguard our lives, property, economies better against the threat of increasing extreme weathers. In the long run, the main goal is to build a safer and more prepared community that are ready for whatever the changing climate may bring.
