Nature runs riot after Europe's warmest winter

PARIS (AFP) - Wheat harvested a month early, markets bursting with prematurely ripened produce, animals migrating too soon or not at all -- Europe's warmest winter on record has made nature run amok, experts across the continent have reported.

With average temperatures in the three winter months of December through February more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in most European countries, the environment's biological clock has been thrown off kilter, they say.

In Italy, emerging from the mildest winter in more than two centuries according to Bologna's Institute for Atmospheric Science and Climate, vegetables not normally seen until later in the season -- green beans, asparagus, peas, artichokes -- are already so abundant that merchants can't sell them.

In The Netherlands, where winter wheat has been harvested a month earlier than normal, scientists worry that unseasonably high temperatures will increase the risk of grain plant viruses caused by aphids.

In neighbouring Germany, half of barley crops in some regions have been hit with a weather-related blight of yellow dwarf disease, carried by fleas that do not normally survive the winter.

The Dutch nature observatory Natuurkalender has reported the "chaotic" disruption of normal butterfly lifecycles, with many species emerging from the cocoon far too early.

Woodpeckers and swallows have likewise arrived a month ahead of schedule, they observed.

In Austria, toads in the region of Styria began their spring migration to summer ponds at least 15 days early, catching environmentalists who last year shepherded thousands of the amphibians across motorways to safety off guard and unprepared.

In Sweden -- where temperatures at midweek stood at 10 C (50 F) compared to -10 C (14 F) at the same time last year -- and elsewhere in Scandinavia, melting snows and pollen in January have heralded an untimely spring.

This flurry of alarmed observations from across Europe arrive amid predictions by climatologists and weather forecasters that record warm weather is likely to continue through the spring, and perhaps into the summer as well....

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Tokyo sees first snow of winter, latest on record

A cold snap brought a sprinkle of snow to Tokyo on Friday morning for the first time this winter, the latest arrival of snow in the capital on record, the official weather agency said.

"Snow fell for a short while from around 7 a.m. (2200 GMT Thursday)," an official with Japan's Meteorological Agency said.
"It was the latest first snowfall since the agency started keeping records in 1876."

Temperatures have dropped below average levels across Japan in mid-March, with heavy snow hitting northern areas at the start of spring following unusually mild weather in the winter months from December to February.

The previous record for late-arriving snow was Feb. 10, set in 1960, the Meteorological Agency official said.