If you want to know what winter is going to be like in Spain, the best thing you can do is take a look at Siberia right now

It is not every day that you can write that good news comes from Siberia. But that’s how it is: the world is warming at an unprecedented rate, Arctic ice has reached historic lows in 2025 and the temperature of the Arctic Circle is increasing up to four times faster than that of the rest of the planet.

And yet, snow coverage in Siberia has reached an above-average extent.

But the important thing is not that. The important thing is not the 15.59 million square kilometers of snow in the northern hemisphere, nor what they mean for the region’s weakened ecosystems. The important thing is that, whether we want it or not, it can be sensational news for Spain.

But what does Siberia have to do with Spain? At the end of the 90s, Judah Cohen (MIT climatologist) began to notice the blanket of snow that covered Siberia before November and, almost by chance, realized that its size kept a very close statistical relationship with what was happening in the rest of the continent.

At first (and, it must be said, understandably) the international community viewed him with suspicion. But after 20 years of research, the Siberian Snow Advance Index (SAI) is perfectly established. Yes, indeed: what happens in Siberia has a lot to do with what happens here in Spain.

How is it possible? The mechanism is very simple, so much so that most meteorologists did not even consider it. But its implications are enormous.

The abundant snow in Siberia causes problems in winter in Europe by pure feedback. “More snow” means “more albedo”; that is, more solar reflection, colder soil and, therefore, a ‘push’ to the Siberian anticyclone. AND the stronger that anticyclone isthere is a more upward flow towards the stratosphere, there are more sudden warm-ups and more tropospheric patterns of negative AO. In summary: more air masses are moving towards mid-latitudes and more trains of storms are heading towards our geography.

And yes, just take a look at Rutgers Global Snow Lab maps to verify that the extent of snow in mid/late 2025 is more than considerable.

What does this mean for Spain? Basically, a negative AO and a weak vortex increase the probability of cold episodes coming from the north and that Atlantic storms move south. That is to say: that there is more rain and colder.

Internationally, high snow levels in Siberia are the “sign” that we must begin to prepare: at the energy, agricultural and infrastructure levels. It is a clear statistical sign that, if things go wrong, a very complex situation can arise.

Will we have a busy winter then? It’s not that simple. In meteorology, no matter how simple and robust the mechanism is, there is always something more. What happens in Eurasia is importantbut that interacts with the oceanic/arctic context (and with myriad other atmospheric processes).

In this sense, a greater snow cover in the great Siberian plain has to coexist with an extremely scarce ice cover (something that conditions ambient humidity) and with seasonal models that point to a greater probability of temperatures above normal.

In other words, everything is very open. But the siberian signal is here and, if everything continues like this until November, it will be good news. Some that suit us exceptionally well.

Image | Copernicus

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