Tag Archives: wind

First snow

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It’s been chilly for a while here in Vienna.  Highs in the 40s, lows just above freezing.  Perfectly normal, of course, for this time of year in this part of the world.  Because we spend a fair bit of time outside (not having a car means that our daily routines involve a lot of walking and/or waiting for public transportation), it’s easy to lose perspective and feel like 42 with a good breeze is cold.

Vienna was happy to remind us today that THAT is not cold and that we’ve actually been very lucky this year (last year, we had snow before Halloween).  We woke up to 34, snow and real wind.  NOW it’s winter.  Now we remember what cold feels like!  Today (as the temperature fell through the morning — thank you, Vienna) we had the kind of wind that takes your breath away and can, when it gusts, literally move your feet sideways on their way to their intended destination or make forward progress literally impossible.  And that’s for me — the kids are lucky to not actually be blown over.

So it is now really, properly cold here (it’ll get worse, but the forecast for the week indicates that our days of coasting in the 40s are probably over for the season).  We only got a few festive flurries and a light dusting on the grass today, but I’m glad to have had a little snow today.  (If we’re going to be frozen, it might as well feel festive!)  With a strong, cold wind, a little snow, and dusk that falls around 3:30 in the afternoon, it truly feels like winter in Vienna again.  (And, it feels like it really is almost Christmas!)

Windigkeit

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I think I may have mentioned it about 1,000 times so far, but I really love the weather here in Vienna.  I love how it’s generally pretty cool (not counting July and August), I love that rain is just a fact of life (pretty much everyone carries an umbrella everywhere, all the time), I love the snow in the winter, I even like how cold it is, and for how long, once winter arrives.  (I’d much rather be cold than hot, and bundling up to be outside makes it even nicer to come back into a cozy house.)  And although I miss thunderstorms (they’re pretty rare here — we get only a few per year), I do really love the wind.

Vienna gets very, very windy.  Often.  The wind whips right down out of the mountains and across Vienna.  It rattles the windows, and howls through the window frames and under the doors.  (It really does.  I’m not being poetic.  And I love the German word for the sound the wind makes — raunen.  It’s perfect.)

We had another very windy night, the night before last.  Even with only a few windows in the house cracked open a bit, the doors around the inside of the house blew closed in the night, the wind moaned outside and the rain splattered the windows.  It was a great night to be snuggled up at home.  It’s just the middle of September, but fall is definitely here and winter is already on its way.  (The high temperature here yesterday was only about 55, and that happened around 7 this morning.)  I love it.