From The Klima Nachrichten

By Frank Bosse

Hardly any reader will remember the winter of 1962/63. It was the coldest of the 20th century.

For something like this to happen, a “blocking weather situation” is required, blocking the Atlantic weather with its low-pressure areas moving eastwards quite quickly.
The comparatively mild and windy “weather broth” ensures lower energy requirements and a lot of generation from wind turbines at “Atlantik on”. This is completely different with blocking. The air masses then come from eastern and northern directions, because there is a high-pressure area on the Atlantic, there in the Iceland-Greenland area, where otherwise a low-pressure area determines the current with the Atlantic “switched on”.

Such weather conditions can have quite drastic consequences in winter, even if the temperatures themselves can no longer take on the minus values as they did at the beginning of the 60s of the 20th century. In the end, the winter of 1962/63 was 5.7 °C colder than the 1961-1990 average and even 6.9 °C colder than the more recent 1991-2020 average. So, this is very difficult to imagine today, because climate change has caused significant warming, especially in Eastern Europe and the north.
Nevertheless, the weather situation with blocking poses a challenge for infrastructure and energy supply in the age of weather-dependent generation with wind and solar plants.
Especially for Germany, since in this country a backup without the use of nuclear power has to be processed. So, what impact would a winter like that have on the energy supply?

This question is explored in a recent study from August 2025. First, she looks at the pressure distribution, the temperatures and the winds at that time:

It is not difficult to see (above in the picture) the blocking high over the North Atlantic and low air pressure over Central Europe. What about today, at Christmas 2025, with the (model) prospects for the beginning of January, since the “coldest feast ? This is quite wild speculation in “normal winter conditions”, but less so in blocking locations, as they tend to maintain the patterns to a great extent, i.e. they can last quite stably if they have arrived in this way.
At “Kachelmannwetter” we find what we are looking for under “Forecast”, the modern AI-supported model of the ECMWF is used. On January 6, 2026, it will find this solution for pressure distribution:

Do you see the similarity with the situation in 1962/63? In the northwest the strong blocking high, over Europe low air pressure. What does that do to the temperatures and wind in the current model?

The temperatures (left) are quite crisp in the permafrost range, the wind (right) is probably only very weak with an average of around 20 km/h over the mainland and thus clearly below normal in almost all of Europe.

We will probably see quite a severe winter in the first half of January, weather models cannot look much further into the future, and everything is also very uncertain for the time shown. It may not be unlike 1962/1963; the different models agree quite well on that. And the problem: Something like this can be very persistent or “persistent”.

The sky will also be quite overcast, and a lot of snow is expected in the lowlands. As a result, production from wind and solar plants will only be able to be very low. A European interconnected grid then shows a dark side: If there is nowhere to compensate for, then regions can also carry each other along via electricity distribution in the event of a shortage.

The study linked above examines the effects of the rare winter weather and also lists the shortfalls:

The energy requirements are shown in the upper left, Germany probably needs a factor of 1.5-2 more than under normal weather conditions and can only produce about 1/3 of that with wind power (shown above right). So high demand meets lower production. The shortfall will then be five times the standard deviation (i.e. the normal fluctuations) in Germany, and seven times in Denmark. The “red” (below) speaks volumes!

Again such weather as in the winter of 1962/63 would be a huge challenge under today’s infrastructure conditions, whether it could be mastered remains open, it is only to be hoped. The probability that this will happen in January 2026 is not negligible, according to the “smartest” weather models that humans have created so far.

An energy system with very few and, if very dirty, redundancy systems, which works especially in good weather, answers “dark red” in rare but not impossible situations like no other country in Europe for which there is valid data, except Denmark.

An alleged role model in the “energy transition”.
Also a “scoop of ice cream problem”, created by political summer fantasists!