Kristopher Rikken, Blue, Black and White Alert The snow kept falling persistently, or like it didn't know how to stop anymore, probably for around 72 hours with some of the heaviest accumulations on New Year's Eve, although your results may vary. It was propelled by an evaporation-cooling cycle over the frigid but still open waters of the Gulf of Finland, and both global warming critics and deniers claimed a point.
Occasionally the snow diminished to flurries but never really ceased, sometimes it imitated dust motes drifting around aimlessly like you might see in a barn, other times the snow was falling upward on aerials or drifting as in like a huge snow globe.Rain is not capable of such magic. As the coup de grace, yesterday the sun showed its face, shining across the land from south to north for an hour -- and it kept on snowing. The sun shone perpendicularly under the falling snow.
The result is pretty. More than 2 feet on the ground -- an all-time record for Tallinn. I've been snowbound in plenty of US nor'easters, but I haven't seen so immaculate a winter wonderland, carefully constructed by nature layer by layer over the month of December. You can cross-country ski free style on side streets and classical on sidewalks. What I could not do today was ski in the forests -- ski rental lines were too long at Pirita. Then again, maybe not such a hot idea. Looking up while running on a Nõmme street last night, I saw that the snow caps on the evergreen boughs were the size of small automobiles.
Tomorrow will bring some black grit back to the major thoroughfares, and sublimation and rising temperatures will decrease the actual depth for a day or two. Or maybe not: snow is in the forecast again.
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http://camprikken.blogspot.com... )
