Snow is here already

Hi Maksim,

The Po Valley, so thats where you are. Over here thats a type of tellytubby.

Have you ever been to the festival of the fishes in Cattolica ?

Where I used to live in Wales, the village was in a horse shoe, backed by mountains. The air didn't change for weeks in the winter. Most of the village had coal fires & the smoke sat in the valley. The air was yellow & made your eyes water.

You could watch clouds forming as the moist air came over the mountains & met the cold air.

 

Hi Ziggy.

Actually no. I've never been to the festival fishes of Cattolica.

And, to be honest, I even did not know that there is a festival of fishes of Cattolica...

...as it occurs, we sometimes are very well informed about things that are on the way abroad, maybe we read and visit many places throughout the Europe and the world and eventually we realize that we do not know places nearby home... :D.

Well, Cattolica...

I've never been there...

Shame on me! I've been to London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Saint-Petersbourg, Moscow, Ivanovo (deep in the russian taiga), Tenerife, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Murcia, etc. but I've never been to Cattolica...

That's the way it is...

But I was near Cattolica: I was in Rimini.

Only because I had a school trip. Anyway, we were 14 yo pupils and we were more interested in doing a mess during the night in the hotel's rooms (you can imagine... :WINK1 rather than paying atention to cultural events and monuments...

I can imagine the atmosphere in the welsh village you have talked about.

After all, you the british have invented an amazing word to describe it: "SMOG".

That is "SMOKE + FOG" = "SMOG".

Nowadays, this word is widely used also by the italians who often speak about "smog" when they refer to the big city air pollution...

In the po valley, the problem is particularly severe because the polluted air is cold, heavy, still and entrapped in the valley. But as I said, we loan this word from the english.

Probably because in Britain the Industrial Revolution started, probably because of the wide use of coal that was in the 1800 Industrial England (typycal of the Edwardian, Georgian, Victorian age), probably because of the word invented by the english ("smog"), we Italians often match the word "smoke" to the city of "London".

The italians who have never been to London use to think that London is the "fog's countryhome" and we the italians have given a name to a dark gray colour: "Grigio fumo di Londra" ("smoke-of-London Gray").

Actually, we who have been to London know that fog may occur in London but, sure enough, there are many cities throughout Europe that are much more foggy than London.

Milan, for example, is one of them...

 

Hey Maksim,

We refer to London as "The Smoke" too, but your "Grigio fumo di Londra" sounds much more romantic.

I've been up "The Smoke" during a blocking high pressure system, although you can only use smokeless fuel there now, you still have the car exhausts which react with the sunlight to cause photochemical smog. It gives a yellow haze to the air, and again stings eyes, noses & lungs.

One bad day there, we went to the Palm House at Kew Gardens. A huge Victorian glass house. It was boiling inside, but the air was the cleanest in London, oxygen having just been breathed out by the plants.

I know what you mean, I was about 12 yo when I went to Cattolica,

http://www.visitcattolica.com/en-105-37-0-2-food-and-wine-cattolica-local-festivals.php

For a few Lira I bought a jug which they filled up with wine from big (25 litre?) bottles, free after you paid for the jug, and as much fish as you could eat.

Lost Mum & Dad in the crowd & had a great evening. Woke up in the shower surrounded by snails & lizzards tails

 

I see.

I know what car exhaust pollution is all about as, when I was in my 20 years I could not afford any car and I had only a bike as a locomotion vehicle.

I ride my bike in the Milan's car traffic and I well remember the air pollution.

When I live in London, in 1998, I did not ride any bike. Indeed, in London, the tube network is very efficient and any place can be easily reached by tube.

For example, I had "Lambeth north" as tube station near home and I got off "Bond street" to go to work.

I got off "Regent 's park" to go playing football at the park on saturday afternoon, I got off "Piccadilly Circus" to take a stroll in the city centre, etc.

Everywhere is well served by the tube, so I did not need any byke. So I did not feel the exhaust car pollution as I did in Milan and, as a consequence of that, I had not the sensation that London, as well as all the big cities, is polluted.

I also well remember the very hot wet air in the Greenhouses at Kew Garden.

I was there together with a spanish friend of mine (from Barcelona).

He felt sick due to the hot wet air.

Probably because he is from Barcelona, he lives in the lovely seaside weather conditions and is not accostumed to the sultry sticky hot weather as I am (since I experience that situation every summer when in Milan region temperatures range from 30 to 35 C and humidity is over 90%).

Back to the topic of this thread (snow and winter temperatures), I report that, unlike other western Europe cities, Milan still have fairly low temperatures.

Here some yesterday's temperatures (lows and highs):

London Heathrow +11 +13

Paris +12 +14

Frankfurt +5 +13

Hamburg +2 +9

Milan Malpensa -3 +10 (three degrees below freezing point as low temp).

As I said, Milan still have low temperatures due to the trapped cold air which has previously come in all Europe last december.

This meteorological phenomenon is extreme in a place located in south Germany.

Namely in the southernmost tip of Bavaria.

The place's name is "Funtensee".

As wikipedia says,

"Known as the coldest spot in Germany, the lake is the site where the country's record lowest temperature, ?45.9°C (-50.6°F),was recorded on 24 December 2001. It is theorised that due to the unique situation of trapped cold air, a temperature
of -55°C (-67°F) is possible. The extreme cold spot at the lake is said to result in a reverse tree line, as no trees can grow at any point below about 60m above the lake, although studies have found that it was the result of overgrazing animals."

Here some photos of "Funtensee" (altitude 1,601 metres / 5,252 feet, in the town of "Berchtesgaden", not far from the famous "Kehlsteinhaus" (also known as the "Eagle's nest", erected by the germans during the WW2)):









And here, its location:

 

Buona Sera Maxim,

Blimey -55c, that would freeze your eyeballs & make your knee caps drop off. Great place to build an hotel, wonder what their insurance costs.

I think even fuel freezes at that temperature.

Thanks for the pictures & map, thats very interesting.

 

Buona Sera Ziggy !

That's sounds umbelieveble to me too.

-55 are temperatures, say, typical of Siberia (say Yakutia), interior of Alaska, Canada, Greenland...

I hardly believe that these temperature can be recorded in Germany (although at an altitude of 5,000 - 6,000 feet). But if they say that, I believe it...

One friend of mine told me what it looks like waiting a bus at a bus-stop in Irkutsk (Eastern Siberia, near Mongolia) in a winter day.

She says that if she had to wait - say - one more minute she would have faint.

The air inhaled was so cold that it hurt her throat and lungs when she breathed it.

She told me that those seconds waiting for the bus to stop were never-ending...

She was really suffering at the bus stop.

She should have been accostumed to cold temperatures as she is a russian woman from Moscow but on that occasion the temperature was too cold even for her (I guess it was colder than minus 30 C...Probably nearly minus 40).

 

Ciao Maksim,

That is scary, have you seen the film "The Day After Tommorow ?

Your friend was lucky to survive such a low temperature.

You are on my buddy list & I hope that when you come back to the uk that we can meet up. We have much to talk about.