Þíðviðri og hláka

Thaw and snowmelt

In the last two weeks after Christmas we had a relatively consistent period of cold weather.

Mostly good weather, only one heavy snowfall, but otherwise really pretty good and regular Northern Lights at night!

During this time, the temperatures here were often below 5 °F (-15 °C) and remained below freezing almost all the time. (The water connection only froze once when it was -2 °F (-19 °C) for a day... and my husband also managed to thaw the connection overnight!)

We also had quite a bit of snow, if you look at the picture I took of our terrace over the last few days...

Here's another picture of the icicles that hung from the eaves of our roof under a clear blue sky.

It's been getting warmer since yesterday. Since yesterday afternoon it has been constantly above freezing level, it is thawing and dripping and the icicles that were hanging from the roof have become much smaller within a few hours. I took this picture here about 2 hours ago - and the icicles have now completely melted away.

Fortunately, the change in the weather has not yet led to traffic chaos here. Yesterday in the afternoon we drove across the Hellisheiði to Reykjavík with 36 °F (2 °C) and snowfall, which went smoothly despite the thaw. Wind and rain are supposed to come tonight, I hope it stays as harmless as possible...

[Translated from here.]