musings while allatsea

Musings of a curious individual

Tag: weather

Snowed under

Gloucestershire, Personal, Photo Essay, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom

It is now the weekend and Tewkesbury is trying to recover from under the snow that we had on Thursday evening and Friday. It really feels like a major disaster happened although it was really just unseasonal snow (soon to be accompanied by rain). Chaos did reign though and I am sure the highways were bogged down with stuck cars and accidents. I havent been biking to work since Wednesday but hoofing it to work and back. Fortunately I do not live too far away from work.

My camera was working overtime though, and as usual I have been taking pics galore. I am sure everybody has seen the same old places in my pics, so I tried for different ones for a change. The wind was very strong on Thursday evening so some very interesting shapes were to be found in the snow drifts and wind driven snow.

 

And of course I was also fortunate enough to spot an “ice giant” lurking in the undergrowth….

He is just waiting to swallow us all!! Run away run away! 

What I did find interesting is that parts of the Carrant Brook are frozen, 

I suspect we are not finished with this lousy weather yet, rain is forecast for today and tomorrow, and that could cause the snow to freeze which will make things very dangerous. I am hoping that the cycle path will be more navigable during the week so that I can fetch my meds, of course assuming that the pharmacist pitches up for work.

And that was the weather. We now return you to our regular broadcast.

DRW © 2018. Created 03/03/2018

Updated: 04/03/2018 — 08:28

Let there be snow!

Gloucestershire, Personal, Photo Essay, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom

Yes it is true, it is snowing outside. We had our first flakes on Friday but it was not a significant amount. But the weather forecast for the UK predicted snow wherever you go for today!

I woke at 7.30 but it was too dark to see much and I managed to bounce my flash off the flakes outside. It looked very promising and when I made my usual call home it was belting down outside. Here are some of my first pics. 

And yes, it is cold, and no I do not have snow boots and yes my hands are frozen. But… I am chuffed. I will periodically post new pics as I venture out. I am not likely to take a long trip because I do not want to get caught in it and it does appear that snow will be with us for most of the day.

11.55.

I went down to the Abbey to see what it was looking like, I was too wary to use the bike, and considering the slush on the roads I am glad I did not. Ugh, what a mess!​

 

The Abbey always presents interesting photographic opportunities, and just think how many snow storms it has seen during its long existence.​

 

My real aim was to do another “Cemetery in the snow” post, similar to the one I did in Basingstoke in 2015, but the cemetery is quite a long walk away and I was not going to tackle that! Instead I headed across to the old Baptist Chapel and its associated graveyard. I have not done a separate post on the chapel so will do that after I am finished playing in the snow.

11/11/2017

10/12/2017

And then it was time to wend my way home along the cycle path. It is hard to believe that this was once a railway line 

And that was the day, or should I say morning. It is still snowing outside although the weather forecast is for sun tomorrow. We will see when we get there. Will I use the bike tomorrow? probably not. I am not that confident with the inevitable slippery roads, and because of the low temperatures there is no way of knowing what conditions will be like out there in the morning, or in the evening. We will just have to wait and see.

Tuesday 12 December.

The leftover snow is still on the ground, the pavements are ice rinks, the temperatures are low but the light is fantastic. I took these on my way to work this morning.

And that concludes the weather. We now return to our regular programming. 

© DRW 2017-2018. Created 10/12/2017

Updated: 01/01/2018 — 17:01

It is only desultory snow

Gloucestershire, Personal, Photo Essay, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom

Yes it is true, it “snowed” last night, actually that may not be quite true, if anything we had a desultory fall of white stuff that may have been snow, sleet, or dandruff. It is really hard to say with this stuff. The weather had been stormy in the UK these past few days, and my weather app warned that Thursday would be interesting weatherwise.

By the time I left work last night it was just slightly cold and the roads were wet but there were no snowmen in the offing.

Apparently, early this morning round about 4 am is when it happened. I heard and felt nothing.

The results were apparent when I left for work.

The roads and tarmac were covered in a thin layer of snow, even some of the cars had a dusting

Sadly though this was NOT impressive stuff!

In fact it reminded me a lot of “the winter of ’12” and that only lasted for 5 minutes  

What I found strange was that there was none of this “snow” on the grass, it was only on the tar and pavements. I would have expected that the residual heat from the black tar would have melted what there was reasonably quickly, leaving the greenery covered. Alas that did not happen.

There were scattered patches though:

But not the sort of stuff that would make me ooh and aah, still, it was better than nothing, and the cycle track did look kind of nice.

Although it did look very much different on the 30th of October

That very spectacular bush is now quite limp after its glorious burst of colour.

And that concludes the weather. We now return you to our regular broadcast.

© DRW 2017-2018. Created 13/01/2017

Updated: 01/01/2018 — 16:42

Brrr. Its chilly out there

Gloucestershire, Personal, Photo Essay, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom

The temperature around here has been steadily declining as we head into Winter, and this can produce some really spectacular results from a photographic point of view. The evening of the 29th saw the temperature fall to -5, and the results were really worth seeing. 

This is the cycle track that I use on my way to work every morning.  I was using my phone to take pics with although there was not a lot of light around as the sun was just starting to rise.

Before heading off to work I first stopped by at the local playing field to see what it was like. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought that it had snowed.

I leave earlier in the mornings nowadays so the sun is really still rising, and the pics I took were over a period of about 15 minutes.

The spiders were not having a lot of fun either.

and the leaves were edged with frost

The field next to the cycle track was a mass of white, and looked beautiful.

The teasles had also come to the notice of the frost and they too were covered.

The small stream that feeds into the Carrant Brook runs alongside the cycle path and it was frozen, I photographed it but the image I took the next day was a much better one.

What amazed me was how many cobwebs there were in this field, you don’t normally notice them, but when frost like this arrives they become very visible.

I will not even contemplate how many spiders may be involved in creating those webs, but then nature does find ways to balance this all out. In a few weeks this will all be under water and all the webs will be gone and the spiders washed downstream. 

The next day was not as spectacular though, and it has gradually been warming since then. But, on the 20th January similar conditions existed and I took some pics. I knew more or less what to expect and what to look for and when next the temperature plummets like this you can be rest assured  I will be keeping a beady eye open and my camera handy.

And if that just happens to be on a weekend you can bet I will be heading to the local cemetery to see what I can see. 

I love winter, the cold may be horrible, but the light is spectacular and the effects of the weather make for wonderful photographic opportunities, if you can deal with frozen fingers and snow on your nose. 

© DRW 2016-2018. Created 01/12/2016

Updated: 01/01/2018 — 16:30

Whether the Weather

Personal, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom
I must be bored because I am posting about pigeons and potholes, and now the weather.
 
It has been quite an interesting 2 days actually, the weather reported that we could have snow on Tuesday evening, but that did not materialise. Or did it?  This fine morning (Wednesday), I looked out upon the playing field outside my flat. Last week it was a lake, this week it was a field of frost, this morning it was…. shrouded in mist.
Last Week
Saturday morning
Yesterday morning

 

This morning

I have to admit I was fascinated, the mist was very heavy and the vegetation had this white covering of ice crystals, even the cobwebs looked awesome! (although eensy weensy spider was probably not amused).

 

 
Unfortunately I was using my cellphone camera and not my usual camera, which is just as well because it is useless at night. On my way home I was equally baffled, hoping to take pics of the grass with a flash I found that the light was being reflected off thousands of tiny ice crystals that I could not even see. 
But I did managed to get images of that vegetation again, and it was fantastic. I believe that this phenomena is called “Rime Ice“, or one of the many permutations thereof
 
 
 
and the ice on the barbed wire I found very poignant; leaving me to think of all those who perished behind similar wire during the two World Wars.

 

 

The odd thing was that there was a lot of vapour in the air, I could not see it, but the light was bouncing off of it, rendering my pics less than satisfactory. And then I hit the jackpot.
 
 

That image made it worth my frozen hands. In retrospect I should have taken my camera this morning, but it is too unpredictable at night, ideally the cellphone works well because the flash charges fast and I can fire off pics quite quickly. Maybe tomorrow night there will be even more peculiar weather for me to photograph, that’s the beauty of something like this, no two images are the same, you just have to take what you can get!

Incidentally it is -2 degrees outside.

And now: bedtime!

© DRW 2016-2018

Updated: 01/01/2018 — 16:07

This has also been true for January 2016

Gloucestershire, Personal, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom
 

 
Yes it is true, it has been a very quiet 2016 so far, although in South Africa the old racism issue has raised its ugly head once again, and frankly I am not interested in that. Tewkesbury however is the same as usual, the only difference is that the water level has risen with the recent storms that the UK has experienced, the Avon and Severn have become one, and the flood plain outside my window has become a lake. The Carrant Brook that barely burbles is running strongly, and the local squirrel has probably started to take swimming lessons. 
 
 
Now ordinarily that building in the middle is where the Severn/Avon locks are. I posted about it last year, but currently it is easier to just go over the locks as opposed to through them.

Tewkesbury is prone to flooding, it is one of those things and probably has been like that since forever. Unfortunately it sits on two rivers, it is expected.

 

 

So, unless the weather improves and the Avon and Severn start dropping in depth things where I am may be a bit wet. 
Meanwhile, in South Africa there is a drought.  I would post some water back home but the SA post office is liable to steal it.
It never rains, it pours.

Update: 16/01/2106
The river is slightly down and the lake outside my flat is subsiding, the locks are also starting to re-emerge.

 


It was however a sparkling morning, with frost on the ground, ice in the streets and a nip in the air, one of those beautiful mornings that I love so much with its stunning light and a chill that is not too uncomfortable.

 

I believe it may snow on Tuesday evening….

© DRW 2016-2018. Images recreated 17/03/2016
Updated: 01/01/2018 — 15:22

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Johannesburg, Personal, Retrospective, South Africa, West Rand
At the end of June I posted an entry about my first snow, little expecting that the 7th of August would bring snow and icy conditions to South Africa.  I live out on the West Rand and generally the wind just blows like mad, but yesterday was to prove to be an interesting day. 
Suddenly everybody was talking about heavy snowfalls in Vereeniging and the Free State, but all I could see out of my window was a layer of dirty clouds and birds trying to fly while being blown backwards. I was secretly hoping that my nemesis, the mad pigeon, would head South too and never return. I kept watch for most of the morning and not a flurry was to be seen until about 1 pm when flurries started. Grabbing my camera I dashed outside and nearly blew away. Light puffs that could also have been severe dandruff, were flying haphazardly through the air, but there was no real coverage at all.
 
But by 1.30 it was a different story altogether as the flurries became much more than the occasional puff or 2. 
 
The wind was still howling though and it was seriously cold. I went down to our parking and everything was turning white. The usual view across Kloofendal was of a large white lake, although that was mostly mist. Our “lawn” was looking good though, rapidly disappearing underneath a blanket of snow.

 

The wind was still screaming and it was decidedly unpleasant to be outside and  I was about ready to pack it all up and head indoors again and mutter sweet nothings to my heater.

 

This whole escapade had taken the grand total of 10 minutes! That was the end, and probably in 20 years time we may hit snow once again. But, it was fun and when I ventured out just after 3pm there were only small patches of ice in corners and on objects, but no sign of any more forthcoming snow.

 

 

 

What fun! but the real drama was still to come as our power went phut! and from then on we were on and off until I gave up later that night. Even my UPS quit on me and this fine morning I was unable to make my usual excursion to Pretoria. A visit to Westgate revealed large puddles inside the hyper, and teams with mops working themselves into a sweat. 

The weather person assured us that no more snow was forecast, which was a pity because it was a great seeing those white flakes hurtling downwards once again after so many years I believe in some areas snowmen were being built and traffic was standing still on some of the main roads, (although that is the usual state of traffic), and I am just grateful I was not on the roads yesterday,  it’s hard enough driving on our roads when it isn’t raining.
 
© DRW 2012-2018. Images recreated 25/03/2016
Updated: 26/12/2017 — 15:05
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