Wintry Europe

 After two heavy snowstorms in December, here in Ohio, January so far has been dry and snowless, in spite of all the clouds.  

It's a different story in Europe however.  You may have read about the freak blizzard in Spain which dumped 20 inches in Madrid, a place that rarely sees much snow.  

This weekend I talked with my Swiss cousin Brigitta who lives near Zurich.  You associate Switzerland with snow and skiing, and that is true up in the Alps.  But I did a bit of research on the climate in Zurich, and their average high temperature in January (37F) is higher than here in Cleveland.  They get less than one half the amount of snow that we get on the west side of Cleveland (and much, much less than in the "snow belt" on the east side of my city).  However, Brigitta told me that they have had a stretch of colder than normal weather, that there is a bit of snow, and that there are a couple inches of ice in the pond in her garden.  

I also talked with another one of my Swiss cousins, Hans Peter, who lives in Bergen, Norway.  Now you would really expect extreme winter weather that far north.  But in spite of the fact that it is nearly as far north as Fairbanks, Alaska, its location along the Atlantic coast moderates the temperature.  The average high temperature in January is 39F.   Hans Peter told me that February is usually their snowiest month, but they started the year with a fairly heavy snowfall.  All of this discussion is simply an excuse to show you this picture which Hans Peter sent me of his daughter Angelina enjoying the snow in Norway.