Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Snow doesn't fall in Jerusalem

Today was supposed to be the big day for snow in Jerusalem, but all I saw was a little bit of snow on the lawn in the morning, and when I was at Shabbat lunch, there were a few brief falls of hail. It snowed in the north and on the Hermon, however.

A picture from my lawn this morning:


This afternoon, when I got home from Shabbat lunch and the sky had started to clear.


A pretty cloud in the southern sky.


I, personally, am waiting impatiently for spring to really spring. Today I saw some snapdragons and petunias flowering. The cyclamens are also flowering (they are called raqefet in Hebrew - רקפת).

To sunnier days!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Weather words in Israel - sand, rain, and snow

A couple of weeks ago, the weather was described as ovech (אובך). It was cloudy (מעונן) or partly cloudy (מעונן חלקי) and there was ovech. I looked the word up in the dictionary, and the translation was "mist." But it wasn't misty outside - instead the sky was cloudy and the air was not clear. It looked like fog, but it wasn't fog. I found out that ovech refers to sand particles hanging in the air and blocking visibility - in other words, a sandstorm, but in this case a rather gentle one.



This morning I got up, opened the shutters and looked outside - and behold (הנה), it's cloudy and there is also some ovech. In the southern part of the country there is, in fact, a sandstorm.

And now the whole country is preparing for two days when it is so'er (סוער) - stormy, gashum (גשום) - rainy, and qar (קר) - cold. On Mt. Hermon, in the far north, it is mushlag (מושלג) - snowy. (The word for snow is sheleg (שלג)). Since it's been snowing on Mt. Hermon, hordes of people have rushed up to see the snow and to ski.

The news this morning warned that tonight in Jerusalem it will get to 1˚ C - just a smidge above freezing, and that we should prepare and make sure our apartments are warm enough. Tomorrow in Jerusalem it may actually snow! And people are very excited and hope it will happen. Speaking as an Ithacan, I am not looking forward to snow, since one of the reasons I decided to spend my sabbatical in Israel was to avoid the cold and snow in Ithaca.

Stay tuned for updates...

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Snow in Jerusalem


Once again, it is snowing in Jerusalem - and for once, I think that it is snowing more heavily there than here in Ithaca, where we now have a desultory lake-effect snowfall right now. (We've gotten hardly any snow this year thus far).

For links to more photos of today's snow in Jerusalem, see Elms in the Yard, a Jerusalem blog.