Sending best wishes to all those in areas so badly affected by the strength of the winter storms. Here's hoping an improvement in conditions and repairs to broken power lines and so on are speedily achieved.
In the UK the main problem has been wind , rain and high tides so far this winter.
Here on the North East we have been luckier than most - whether or not that continues is open to discussion - until at least June, I reckon!
Hope all members are safe.
Ian and M
Comments
Mark, I have read about the
Mark, I have read about the cold weather you have experienced over there, and don't hope we will get anything like it here. (We had cold and devastating weather the two previous years.)
This winter has so far been very mild and until today (12 January) we have only had one day with freezing temperature! The the mean has been 4-5 above normal (for two months (+6C for December and January so far). (Other parts of the country has had even higher above normal but still on the cold side of the scale.)
But now it is a change in the weather with an easterly Siberian breeze. Maybe it is an improvement from the rainy and stormy weather from west. (Several trees have collapsed in my garden.)
As Mark says, just like it
As Mark says, just like it was in our younger years.
Last week, winter let go for
Last week, winter let go for a brief moment- enough to banish the snow, and allow me to collect fallen Beech and Oak leaves to line a Stanhopea basket. The week of + 12C highs was a welcome break. Today the doors are shuttered- whiteout conditions due to heavy blowing snow, today's high rose to -9C. Thank goodness NARGS and SRGC seed exchange first round seed choices arrived this week!
Although the winter has been
Although the winter has been very mild here at the coast of Rogaland, Norway, you shan't go far inland to find much snow.
This video is taken today a little south and east from here and not very high up in the mountains either!
Some places the snow cover is still 14 meter/ 46 ft!
http://www.nrk.no/rogaland/fortsatt-stengt-til-lysebotn-1.11718351
http://gfx.nrk.no//y6EJD49fl3CnBGCENvErEQj5nYjp_l-Gx-5frkqBOdaA
66F in the garden today and
66F in the garden today and needed to cover my Primulas in the greenhouse (top 80's even with shade paint on the outside) with fleece and joy of joys for South western England IT WAS DRY
This year we're getting a winter as I remember them in my youth, VERY COLD, downright frigid, with temperatures dipping to 0 F (-17 C) on many nights and maybe only reaching 10 F (-12 C) by day. Coldest night so far was -10 F (-23 C), but still not as bad as when I was a boy as invariably we would get week long spells down to -20 F (-29 C).
But we're now getting some rollercoaster weather, it'll warm up for a couple days, as it did yesterday, hitting an incongruous spring-like 60 F (15.5 C) and pouring rain, makes no sense. This is the worst for plants, in places where soil is now exposed, the top 1" or so is pure muck with standing water, because the frost is probably a couple feet deep by now preventing any drainage.
I hear that much of Europe is experiencing a non-winter this year, one of the mildest on record. Here's hoping that winter doesn't come in February for you folks.