A cold, early winter in Europe

It is time again for something personal which has nothing to do with football. I love the different seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and am generally interested in the weather, so I do follow the weather reports on television and online. Currently it simply is too cold here...

We are in early-December and normally at this time of the year here in this part of Germany we have cool weather but not really winter weather with rains, maybe some snow but often not, sometimes with overnight frost and often foggy conditions. But this year the winter has come early and has hit the western part of Europe quite severely. In some parts it has been as cold and that much of snow as never before towards the end of November/early-December.

Initially we had not that much of snow, but there were the cold temperatures and the icy wind from the east which was giving us a tough time. Temperatures of -7°/-8°C plus the wind chill made it feel cooler then -20°C. And that is tough if one remembers that only in mid-November we had temperatures of up to +16°C and sunshine.

Now the snow has also set in and after a few days you get used to the -7°/-8°C and with the snow it doesn't feel so cold and the winds from the east have died down for the moment. But even in the normal winter these kind of temperatures are only prevailent for a few days and then it usually gets warmer again.

So this could mean another long and tough winter across Europe. Last season it lasted over three month's with record snow and low temperatures. This year the winter has come over a month earlier which could mean over four month's of snow.

I like such weather rather then those +4°/+5°C and rainy conditions, but life does become a little bit more difficult with traffic and travel by train or plane getting affected. Still is it nice to simply walk through the snow and ice...