Ice, by any other name...

...is still really bloody cold.

I am amazed at the multitude of ways ice can fall from the sky. A cold snap has been rolling its way across Northern Europe since Sunday evening, bringing with it regen (rain), sneew (snow), hagel (hail), and plenty of ijs (ice).

By now I am starting to become familiar with snow:

...but there are also the wonders of flurries. It's like the cottonwoods are seeding, only instead of standing in a warm, humid, green grove you're standing in the freezing cold and wind.

I'm reminded of the Terry Pratchett book "The Last Continent", based loosely on Australia, where the natives don't believe that water can fall from the sky. "Water is heavy, how does it get up there?!" I'd have thought that about so much ice had I not seen it myself!

People here (and probably everywhere) hate the flurries because they 1) reduce visibility considerably 2) turn the ground into a brown slushy and 3) case your vehicle in ice. If your eyes are really good (or maybe if you click on the image), you can see the dim outline of the red license plate rim on this BMW in the parking lot at my work.

And of course, there is hail. I have seen the small hail that falls by the bucketfull, which drops from otherwise dry skies. The picture at the right features what I have dubbed "rock salt" hail, which freezes to things as if they are stale cineplex pretzels. It seems to always strike exactly when I get on my bike for the last leg to work.