Over a large area, we are caught in a strong westerly current that rushes across the Atlantic towards us and meets a powerful high in continental Europe, which deflects the current to the north. A very pronounced outbreak of cold air leaves the eastern half of North America shivering. We remember: D. Trump's inauguration had to be moved indoors because of the cold. What seems more important is that ice is forming on the Hudson River in New York, there have been snowball fights in the streets of New Orleans, and the swamps of Florida have become an unusual winter forest (subjectively beautiful video). In any case, the very cold air mass in the USA is slowly moving eastwards towards the Atlantic. The cold, Arctic air flows over warm seawater, which promotes the large-scale development of low pressure over the Atlantic, which in turn produces the strong westerly flow that we are currently experiencing.
In addition to the snowfall of the last few days, we should also mention the impressive storm Éowyn, which caused severe damage and record wind speeds of over 180 km/h at the end of last week, particularly in Ireland (not on exposed foehn mountains, but on the coast). More on Éowyn's meteorological peculiarities (bomb cyclones! Shapiro-Keyser structure! Possibly Stingjet??) for example here.
Outlook
Today (Wednesday), the PowderAlert low is already more or less history and a new, smaller low over France is again providing a slightly foehn-like south to south-westerly current. The low pressure system is expected to drift into the Mediterranean region over the next few days and ensure "unsettled" weather (some snow every now and then, some sun) until the end of the week. Meanwhile, the next high-pressure bridge will form between the strengthening Azores High and high pressure in the east. The high pressure is expected to dominate the weather from Sunday and into next week. It currently looks like an Atlantic block and inversion in the medium term.
