People may have seen that much of Greece is covered in snow at the moment. Thought I’d share this picture of the Acropolis
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/heavy-snowfall-paralyses-greece-2022-01-24/
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
11830 posts
Thank you.
Very different than what we saw in our late June visit
Snow on polished marble.... the ultimate slip hazard
Posted by
San Diego, CA, USA
472 posts
Wow! How many of us remember being there under the ferocious sun, absolute opposite. Homer must have a phrase for that sun, like the wine-dark sea. Come, ye classicists! Or we can make one up :)
Posted by
Twin Cities of MN
6361 posts
Fun photo, thanks. I enjoyed the characterization "heavy snowfall"! We'd call that a dusting.
Posted by
OP
Brighton, UK
1418 posts
In ‘The Odyssey’ Odysseus warns his men that the sun is a ‘terrible god’. The warning didn’t do any good. His men still rustled the sun’s cattle. The sun then threatened to go and shine in Hades if Zeus didn’t punish them, and the ship was struck by lightning!
‘Terrible god’ has certainly felt appropriate on the odd occasion we’ve got our timing wrong and ended up on a site at midday.
Posted by
6 posts
Thanks for sharing the picture with us. Its amazing to see this picture.
Athens was 53 F today, all time low for Athens was decades ago. The all time low for Greece was in January 1963, -29.6C in Ptolemaida. The low in Ptolemaida was on Tuesday of this week, 16.6C warmer than the record low for Greece. It was -23C in Florina (unofficially), 6.6 C warmer than the official record low for Greece, Florina had an unofficial low of -32C in 2012.
Posted by
OP
Brighton, UK
1418 posts
For those who enjoyed the picture there’s also this bit of video
It reminds me of January 2002 when we were having a farewell meal with Greek friends in Athens before flying back to England. Leaving the restaurant at around 2 in the morning I said it felt like it was about to snow. Our friend Penelope said ‘Alan, this is Athens. It never snows here’.
The following morning there was thick snow on the ground and we were actually stranded in Athens for three extra days. (Not a great hardship!) it was the first winter the new airport was open and apparently airlines hadn’t realised how exposed it was in comparison to the old one. They’d sent planes in without anti freeze and they were all grounded.
Fun times!
Alan
Posted by
Edmonds, WA 🌨 ☂
11830 posts
If that is a "dusting", I cringe at the thought of what folks in MN consider 'a real snow fall'
Posted by
NH (USA)
1218 posts
I would assume that much snow in Athens is a rarity but the way the climate is changing it may not be that rare anymore.
On the other hand here in the northeast of the US we are expecting a 'Nor'easter with the potential of more than 12" of snow (30.48 cm) accompanied by wind gusts.
That type of storms is not unusual but it still makes an impact.
I bet the snow in Athens will soon be gone rather than linger into early April here in addition to more snow for the rest of the winter!
Forgot to mention the below zero temperatures (-17.7778 celsius) we often get.
I'd still take most of Greece's weather over mine!