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National Geographic : 1982 Dec
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winter weather pattern this week," says Yale University meteorologist Ron Smith as we fly over the snow-mantled Alps in a hurricane-hunter airplane in early March. The flight is part of an international mete orologic program called ALPEX (Alpine Ex periment) to study how the Alps help gener ate Mediterranean storms. "An Atlantic cold front got blocked when it met the Alps," explains Smith. "Part of the front sneaked down the Rhone Valley, how ever. When its cold air met the warm sea off France, a cyclone formed and moved east. "By the time the storm reached the Gulf of Genoa, cold high pressure had set in over Europe. So the Genoa cyclone's low pres sure pulled that clear, frigid air into the Mediterranean behind it. Southern France had itself a good, strong mistral." The cold, wicked mistral, which can sud denly turn Marseille into an icebox, is one of several famous local winds in the Mediterra nean. Siroccos, or hot winds from the Saha ra, often bring desert air and dust to Italy and the Alps. This day, however, our hurricane hunter
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