The life and times of a fallen hacker
Archive for the ‘weather’ Category.
Yes, it’s been getting steadily colder, and the first snow fell yesterday.
And hopefully we’ll escape the fifth season, the quellë altogether, and move right into a proper winter.
After all, this can officially be the worst period of the Helsinki weather - ubiquitous rain turning tarmac into slippery photon eater is no-one’s idea of a great time.
My my. How badly Helsinki coped with a minor weather incident.
Radio broadcasting interrupted for hours. Municipal traffic ground to a halt. A stern warning to remain indoors issued by the meteorological institue.
All this from a short (but suitably intense) thunderstorm, and accompanied with an overture of a general alert signal howling in the background.
Perhaps we ought to be careful that this is as violent as the conditions get, or otherwise Finland, as a nation, would have either learned to cope, or been eradicated a long time ago.
The warmest season is back again, after a few worrisomely lukewarm/rainy/cloudy days.
And what would be better use of the sunshine than to escape the raging roof replacement din to a grassy knoll to continue reading the last Harry Potter-installment, eat vast quantities of fresh raspberries and just lazily while away a more than decent summer vacation day.
That’s temperature, in celsius degrees on the y-axis.
Plenty cold, compounded by wind and rain.
Rarely I’ve missed my scarf so bad in may as today.
After all, we had several hours of +6C weather today.
And you never know if some people might be trying to set a personal utepils record.
Nope, I wasn’t. I prefer non-arctic conditions - the evening had turned nippy after sunset.
After a few warmish weeks, the temparature has gracefully dipped deep into the blue again. Mornings are frisky indeed, and sunlight does not heat a lot.
Time for the annual Seurasaari roundabout this weekend, maybe? Though it would be so much better in sunlight.
Of course, if Mr. Omninerd is to be believed, the weather forecasts are not worth trusting.
Saw a halo (or more accurately, an icebow) this morning.
Would have really wanted to photograph this with a real camera, but the 6680’s handiwork fortunately isn’t distractingly bad.
This is the first halo I’ve ever seen, and while the circle is by no means complete, it’s still a spectacular sight. The sundogs on both sides were not plain white (as shown in the image), but bore vague colours of a rainbow.
In addition to finally sinking to a proper temperature for the season, Helsinki has been covered with powdery snow.
Which is nice. And much later than usual. And not really deep by any means.
No snowmen have been sighted yet - it’s been below zero all the way. The ones in the attached image are by Joscha Sauer, a german cartoonist of the garylarsonian persuasion (and one who that singlehandedly proves that the germans are not averse to absurdism). Sadly his output has been seriously curtailed of late.
Winter.
It would appear that my visits to München are the only way Helsinki will get a frosting of snow.
At least it’s been like this twice within the last month, and those occasions have been the only ones since beginning of november.
Let the local ski resort owners come forth with plane tickets and ample spending money if this performance needs to be repeated still.
For those about to click.
Jason Kottke has listed the cream of the crop of his 2400 links remaindered last year. Most still as interesting as on the day of posting.
It’s now official, the past december’s weather was freaky.
With no snow, and temperatures 6-8 degrees above the 30-year norm, it sure was an unusual month. January’s first few days haven’t exactly turned down the heat, so it’s still a long way to go before the expected winter conditions are reached.
Took until now before the first thunderstorms materialized in Helsinki. And even they were pretty lame, as storms go.
Saw the first (and thus far the only one) lightning bolt on saturday - and nope, haven’t got a photograph of that. Accompanied by a couple of distant rumbles, and very little rain, it still was the most advanced storm of the season.
Last night another dry thunderhead crept up on Haaga. Saw a reflection of a bolt on a window and felt the crack of thunder overhead. However, the storm was again a dry one, and died down almost immediately. But it reminded of far more violent summers. Ones that we’d gotten used to.
Experienced the first rain in Helsinki for fifty or so days yesterday. Also heard a few rumbles of thunder, for the first time this summer. No rainbows or lightning thus far.
It’s been a truly dry summer - the driest since the starting of gathering statistics back in 1844. And the lack of storms is perplexing as well, usually we’re hit by at least a couple of proper thunderstorms each summer.
Not dry as in the Blackfoot song, but dry as in parched with thirst. The emerald green grassy fields have been turned to burnished straw that’s prickly to walk on.
The fields have indeed dried out - only those bits next to ditches seem to exhibit any major greenery, the rest is turning yellowish gray.
+28 outside.
+30 inside.
So I’d say it is summer. Real summer. I think I’ve drunk more than a quart of mineral water today, and vast quantities of normal water, juice and soda pop on top.
Spent a big chunk of the day lounging on the grassy knoll next to water in Pikku Huopalahti. No presidential assassins were present, and fortunately no loud kids or drunkards either.
Finished reading Charles Stross’ Hidden Family. Not that much of an improvement over the first part of the trilogy. But then again, the first part wasn’t bad at all.
It’s yet another +25C day. So we’re now officially broken the requirement for a “hot” day.
I guess we’re sitting on top of the overflow valves of Hell, this being rather early for such warm weather. I mean, they must be letting out the heat from down below now that finns won the eurovision song contest…
Not that I’m complaining, not at all. It was indeed a pleasure to reclaim the last room of the flat for proper use. I’m actually writing this in lanternlight, sitting on the balcony. Which, for me, pretty much confirms that we’re in real summer already.
Early summer is finally here.
Early summer as defined by the temperature,
not by calendar. It’s pleasantly warm, around +23 degrees. And sunny. But neither going to the extremes, and both tempered by a pleasantly chilling wind.
Early summer as in the green season - before the heat, sunlight and wind dry out the lawns from their current emerald green into less pleasant yellowing straw. Season when even the birds themselves seem to be perplexed by the constant cacophony in the air.
Early summmer as “early”, when the heat is still a renewed experience after a prolonged winter and a wet spring. And not something that causes everybody to wonder whether the short warm season would justify installation of air conditioning. Or at least buying a bigger fan.
Truly the best season, whose annual appearance never ceases to amaze.
I sure ought to have some pictures here of the celebrated nature, but nope, not yet. Went frisbee-tossing after work and forgot about photography altogether. Traditional session at Tali, throwing a 175-gram ultimate disc around. Session was good, my forehand throw sure wasn’t.
As noted in the attached temperature gauge stolen from the pages of the finnish meteorological institute, the temperature was far from a constant thing today.
At its quickest, the temperature climbed from -22 to -8 in some three hours, which is plenty quick in my book.
Did stay above zero, which means that mr. Slush stayed away. Which is always a bonus. The rest of the week the weather’s predicted to be less wintry, with temperature hovering around -5. Still decent, but not as great as the two bright days of arctic glory.
Awright. It’s been below -20 for several days now (and that’s below zero for the folks scoring temperature on the fahrenheit scale).
And not only has it been really cold, but the weather’s been quite amicable otherwise as well. Snowfall has turned Helsinki into a white city, the frozen sea now pumps no humidity in the air, and sun’s been shining. A lot.
Mamma Gaia is supposed to turn up the heat today night, and tomorrow’s expected temperature is a puny -1C. Right now it’s -22 in Haaga, so it’ll be an interesting bit of hot air that turns this arctic weather into such balm.
