Kiwi

Spent Christmas/New year in Austria. Arrived on 20 Dec in a horrendous blizzard. Mercedes Van with winter tyres and chains. All fine to the village we were staying in -- winter tyres great most of the journey and then chains on for the last bit in the Mts. The ploughs were keeping the main roads fairly clear but as soon as we looked to leave the main road it all went pear shaped. Doesn't really help what vechile you've got .... 2 feet of fresh snow on the roads and we weren't getting any further. Nothing could move except these massive tractorised snow plough thingies that they were using (I want one!). Still we were lucky we made it to within 500m of our house.... just had to lug the 3 kids and all our luggage the last 500m uphill in a blizzard at 10pm .... we finally made it into our nice warm bright house ....only for the village power supply to promptly cut out for the next 24hrs!!! Hence I can't say I'm getting very excited by the current weather here.

Likewise ... the last snow data for Austria seems far from accurate but as I've already said the charts for the Alps are excellent!

Really excellent stuff.!! The detailed Alp weather charts are superb --- Is it possible to overlay a few major towns/ski resorts on these charts to help with navigation?

Lots of cheery news on this thread. I'm off to Austria (small village of Russbach in Daschstein west area) on the 20th Dec and the snow is looking great! Shame the same can't be said for the pound v euro B)

Nigel, thanks... excellent picture, my boys are jumping up and down with excitement over the amount of snow that has fallen already B)

Hi Nigel, Thanks for this. I'm in Russbach (about 45mins SE of Salzburg, near Abtenau) from 20 Dec- 27Dec. I've promised my 3 young boys a white Christmas ...on the mts at least. They're almost as excited as me about the prospects of a really white Christmas!

Really beautiful shots of a spectacular area. That beach is awesome! Does anyone live in that castle in the harbour?? That'd be my sort of house although I expect damp could be a problem!

Seems logical though the high winter suicide rates in places like Finland don't really back it up. My ancestors came to the Uk from Iceland about 300 yrs ago (and I'm fairly SAD!), before moving on to NZ in the 1930s.

Hate it -- really, really gets me down and feeling lethargic!! Today is a right-off ...dark, wet and cold: give me cold crisp anticyclonic weather please. The long dark evenings and days are the worst thing about living in the UK. Conversely the best is a country pub with a roaring log fire.

Hi Jackone would you be able to add Russbach in Austria please. (Dachstein west ski area) Being a small resort, surrounded by other small resorts it's in a bit of a snow forecast desert. We're taking our boys on their first skiing holiday and snow would be useful. Given that we're going at Christmas and Russbach is not particularly high we're taking a bit of a gamble -- the gluwein, jagermeister and sachertorte will take their toll if the snow is lacking!! Thanks. :lol:

SACRA alert!!! NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds !!! :lol:

Michael Fish to deliver BBC forecast this Thursday!!!?

Wow!! Scary --Am I reading this right? that run has Ike bombing once it hits the gulf of mexico -- having taken out much of downtown Havanna then it just sits around for a day or two off New Orleans??

Wind, earthquakes....... potentially quite exciting!? and both the Rimutakas and Tararua range are no doubt very scenic ... though I've not been there myself

Spring... then summer..... I'm jealous. :o Where are you Jo?? I remember many a summer day lazing on the beach at Mt Maunganui, and then after we moved, up at Waipu. It's just constant dreary autumn here!! :o

The cooling since 2000 correlates with sunspot activity. The number of sunspots has been declining since about 2002. Solar Cycle 23 ended in 2002, and Solar Cycle 24 which started in January hasn't really managed to get itself going. The medieval mini ice age, was correlated with a period of little or no sunspot activity called the Maunder Minimum. So, on this basis should I be dusting off my sledge for this winter??

From what I've read, from a wide variety of sources, global temperatures have not increased since 1998. -- There has actually been a v small, though insignificant, decrease.

An exotic garden is very possible in the UK -- even without the Mediterranean summers; My Butia Eriospatha in particular seem to be loving the great British summer ...as does the ever reliable Trachycarpus, various bamboos and my Dicksonia Antartica

The vote from the hampshire jury goes to Clematis!

Anyone have any useful insights or links re weather or pollution levels at the Olympic games. Beijing seems to have a real pollution problem which no doubt is influenced by the weather. Is the outlook for smog or sun? :lol: -- and how about some of the other venues like Qindao (sailing) and Hong Kong (Horsey things) -- any more typhoons on the cards?

Scotl.. where??? I can't find it in my A-Z; is it outside the M25???! Weather sounds atrocious! Hopefully its just the roads and railways and not too many homes are getting flooded.

I've got some slow worms in my garden. They're great and love to lounge around in the sunshine. The kids are fascinated by them and tell all their friends that they've got "huge snakes" in the garden!! I was quite upset last week when one of them was a bit too sluggish and ended up being dissected by my lawnmower. :lol:

What chance of a nice North easterly setting in for Gordon Browns summer holidays in Southwold?? :lol:

Wonderful shots. I'm envious of you living in such a beautiful place Cookie. How do I get there? flights from down south? a nice remote cottage, that scenery and a couple of bottles of malt would sort me out!!

Good call. As you say.....sod's law.....it'll be grim out there. (at least my log pile is stacked nice and high)