It's Been Cold...

Take a close look at the shot below - small waves slopping between the rocks just a few feet offshore in Conception Bay. Now, look a little closer - about 2/3 the way up, to the right - that grey area?

That's salt water slush, Ma'am, yes, salt water slush...and that's cold!

Been nice, tho...lots of sun and good snow, not the heavy, wet kind, but light, dry sparkley stuff...pretty enough to entice us outside in -15, even with the wind blowing. A late afternoon, the sun hits the snow with this honey-tinged light, while dried grasses throw splintery shadows...

But it's about to get a cutting, if the laddies at Environment Canada's weather office are right - and they amazingly often are, considering the challenges of forecasting anything in the meteorlogical monkey puzzle of the North Atlantic that is Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. It's going to get very moist (25mm) and very warm (+9) for the next few days, which should cut the nice base we have back to naught but ice when it cools down later the week. More likely to need salt and sand than snowshoes, skis and poles...

But what the heck - it's only January, after all - lots of time for snow yet, isn't there? In this neck of the woods, winter's a battle between Hope Springs Eternal and The Depths Of Despair where weather fit for outdoor stuff is concerned...we can get buried, or have bare frozen ground, or rain, sleet, and freezing rain, or cold and sunny with a wind that drives the cold thru the heaviest parkas- or else just perfect, cold and sunny and still, the kind of day when you first notice the sun's getting just the faintest hint of direct warmth in it again...

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