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Pride on Ice revisited
Mar. 18th, 2018 12:42 amThere is a video of the Luleå Pride on Ice festival on line. There is a glimpse of me in it, and many of the other Phire jesters as well. :-) Check it out if such things interest you.
Mar. 18th, 2018
Årets första våren
Mar. 18th, 2018 11:03 pmAs many of you know, I take a very northern definition of the seasons, where a "winter day" is any day wherein the temperatures never rose above 0 C, a "summer day" is any day wherein the temperatures never dropped below zero, and a "spring day" (or "autumn day") is any day wherein the temperature was both above and below 0 C during the course of the day. (As to weather a day that crosses 0 C one or more times counts as spring is a matter of debate, that could be resolved based on weather it is before or after the most recent "winter day", or, if one prefers, whether it is between 1 January and 30 June, or between 1 July and 31 December (though in that case one must also take into consideration which half of the planet one is currently in).)
After my first couple of winters in Sweden, when I was so delighted to have proper winter, with real (read: stays on the ground for months, rather than hours) snow again, I started getting frustrated by how often it warmed up to give us spring days in the middle of the winter. Therefore I started keeping track of how many days it a row the temperatures were either above, below, or crossing zero.
The data proved that I wasn't just imagining it, the first three winters in which I kept track the record number of days in a row below zero we had was less than 30, and most of the time there were less than 20 days in a row below zero. This is in direct contrast with the past three summers, which had between 100 and 120 days in a row above zero.
Much to my delight, this winter we actually managed to break the record. Only barely, we did have a day around day 30 where it warmed up *almost* to zero, but then cooled off again. Happened a few more times thereafter, too. However, this year it managed to, just, hold on and we managed 87 days in a row below zero. Until today, when it warmed up to +5 this afternoon, before heading back below zero again this evening. That, my friends, counts as our first day of spring this year.
Spring is even more fickle than winter has been recently, my record number of days in a row in the "crossing zero" category is 13. My phone thinks that tomorrow will be winter again, but Wednesday might be spring, followed by winter for at least a week thereafter (beyond that my phone doesn't make a guess).
After my first couple of winters in Sweden, when I was so delighted to have proper winter, with real (read: stays on the ground for months, rather than hours) snow again, I started getting frustrated by how often it warmed up to give us spring days in the middle of the winter. Therefore I started keeping track of how many days it a row the temperatures were either above, below, or crossing zero.
The data proved that I wasn't just imagining it, the first three winters in which I kept track the record number of days in a row below zero we had was less than 30, and most of the time there were less than 20 days in a row below zero. This is in direct contrast with the past three summers, which had between 100 and 120 days in a row above zero.
Much to my delight, this winter we actually managed to break the record. Only barely, we did have a day around day 30 where it warmed up *almost* to zero, but then cooled off again. Happened a few more times thereafter, too. However, this year it managed to, just, hold on and we managed 87 days in a row below zero. Until today, when it warmed up to +5 this afternoon, before heading back below zero again this evening. That, my friends, counts as our first day of spring this year.
Spring is even more fickle than winter has been recently, my record number of days in a row in the "crossing zero" category is 13. My phone thinks that tomorrow will be winter again, but Wednesday might be spring, followed by winter for at least a week thereafter (beyond that my phone doesn't make a guess).