A Review of 2015/16's early Winter

I think now is the time to review all that snowfall here in Reykjavik recently.

It has been quite cold for a while when I cycled to university on 11am that Friday morning the 20^th. I saw people walking on the lake. I was thinking earlier about if the lake is already able to carry, so I definitely had to try myself. Yes, it worked pretty nice. There’s been snow on the mountains quite a while by that time. On that Friday it first started snowing little, which would not melt away directly but last, as temperatures following the next 4 days were always between 0 and 5 degrees. 

Meine Aufzeichnungen beginnen am 24.11. um 12.51 Uhr.

26.11. 7.23pm: Sanfte flocken säumen jeden grashalm.

Das erleuchtete Hauptgebäude Aðalbyggin der Uni

It snows a bit, stops again and 11pm looks bird-angled like that: 

Then full measures: at 2am on 27th:

Basically temperatures will not go above freezing far into december.
Um 5am ist es vollbracht: Ein Kleid der trockenen, grobkörnig-knirschrigen Sorte. Bombastisch für Schneebälle, aber nix für Schneemänner.

More snow is falling the following night (28^th 4am):

In all this snow I can barely ride my bike anymore. The front wheel is just going somewhere if you do not care a lot while driving. It is really exhausting, but also a lot of fun, so I keep riding even though the streets are not properly cleared in Rvk… just the main streets. All the small side streets are just left with the snow. Same applies to the pavements. You would think streets and pavements are heated in Iceland… it’s true, but only some of them. I actually just know of two streets by now being heated and even those could not handle these amounts of snow (It’s not like the streets would melt everything away, the water used to heat streets comes from houses after heating them up and has just something around 30° when entering the earth).



It’s gonna be a beautiful day… 1.49pm

The little path to university (1.12. 11.45pm):

Bikes hiding under snow:

Severin having fun:

2.12.: graveyard in the evening… not at all spooky just beautiful:

The world simply looks beautiful now. Icicles build up and get as tall as fully grown people. But it also gets dangerous for the old people that can barely get on the pavement after crossing the streets without having a hand, as you have to climb snow walls.

Pavement next to a main road: looks like a horse trail…

 The streets that are not being cleared develop to quite effective car traps (pushing out cars almost every day), including this spot:

On the 3^rd I almost gave up cycling. As the pavements are fields you have to ride on the roads of course. With roads growing crazy bumps and grooves your front wheel doesn’t always go where it should, bringing up a bad feeling of danger when having a car in your neck.

For now there hasn’t been any proper snowfall since the 2^nd. Streets are clearing up, storms coming in. Just be careful, your gravestone might read: “Death by Popsicle”.

About 1,70m popsicle trying to kill you. You just don’t know when.

Anfang Dezember kommen nun auch die richtigen Stürme rein. Im Süden pusten sie Autos von den Straßen… in Reykjavik hält sichs in Grenzen. Die Vorhersage sieht dann so aus:

Temperaturen vor dem Sturm:

Windvorhersage zum Sturm:

Icy winter weather followed by melting storms and then freezing again… That leaves mountains packed in icy shells, looking save to walk on with little stones peaking out of the frosty layer but impossible to climb without proper gear!

So much for now concerning winter, snow and weather. 

Note:
I started writing this mid of December. Now it is the beginning of March and of course winter is not over. There might be a couple of warm days (slightly over zero) followed by a couple of dry and cold days (down to -10°C in town) and then maybe some warm days again. The snow in the highlands will probably stay until around Mai or June...

Streets are suffering the most from these alternating positive and negative temperatures. Potholes in paved streets can appear in a couple of days. Roads can get impassable in storm because snowdrift is building up on them. In the mountains it’s building up with every stronger wind after new snowfall so by now they are so huge you could dig snow palaces into them.