Unseasonable

Back in November, the weather turned really cold. Stupidly cold. Like -32C cold. And everyone was telling us that we were in for what was likely to be the coldest winter in something like 50 years. January and February were going to be hell.

Well it’s January and it’s turned cold again. But cold at the moment is only -15C (yes, it still freaks me out that I refer to it as ONLY -15C) and as recently as last week, we had temperatures that were hovering around the positively balmy ranges of -10 to -4C! It is truly spectacular winter weather, great for skiing and a hell of a lot better on the senses. We did have one day this week that dropped dramatically though, with the wind playing a significant factor. It doesn’t take much of a breeze when it’s this cold to add a -10 wind chill factor to the whole thing.

During this time of unseasonable weather, we have seen another weather related phenomenon that I don’t think I’ve spoken about just yet. Ice fog. It’s when the humidity hits about 100% but the temperature is still well below zero. You get a fog, but it’s more of a dry ice type thing than a wet soupy thing. And during this time, the moisture in the air crystallises on all of the trees. Suddenly these bare-leafed trees that appear nothing more than skeletal remnants of another season become the most gorgeous white fingered, elegant monuments to the beauty that nature has to offer. We were lucky enough to have them looking like that for a couple of weeks, which meant that I even managed to see it in daylight and get to admire the trees on the way up the ski hill as we sat on the lift.