Friday, December 10, 2010

Winter 2010 in Cyprus began today

The seasons can change with surprising rapidity in Cyprus. This year, November was dry and warm - much more so than usual, and even at the start of December we were still seeing blue skies and daytime temperatures of 20-25C.

It was a little chillier at night, so just over a week ago I put our warmer, 9-tog duvet on the bed. A day or two later, Richard serviced our central heating and set it to go on morning and evening, for an hour or two, if the house was cool enough. But for the first couple of days, it didn't come on at all - the weather was still quite warm.

Yesterday I saw that we were due for quite a rainy spell, if predictions were to be trusted. I was expecting to see rain when I got up this morning, but it was still fine, albeit rather chillier than it has been.

By mid-morning, the sky was grey and cloudy, with thunder rumbling around:


There were a few spots of rain - sufficient that the road did look damp, but nothing major.

Our gas man arrived for the first time since about March, to fill up our large outdoor gas barrel. He said he thought it would be colder this week, so people would start to use their central heating. He's very good about ensuring we have a good supply; if I'm not in to write him a cheque, he just leaves an invoice in our outside mailbox, which I can pay the next time he appears.

At lunchtime it rained rather harder. And felt distinctly colder. I don't think we've seen more than 18C today. An hour or so ago, I heard the heating spring into action, and felt some warmth in the radiators.

Winter, it seems, has now arrived. Just as the UK is seeing a thaw in its recent unexpected arctic spell.

And since I now know how to do screenshots on my Mac (the function key with shift-4 for a partial window) here's today's ten-day forecast from the weather site, which doesn't look too dissimilar from yesterdays.


It does say that the sun will be out again in ten days time, which is good news for people coming to Cyprus for Christmas. Assuming that it heralds the end of the rainy spell rather than being a single day's break.

1 comment:

Suzanne said...

It looks like there might be snow at Troodos....glad you are getting moisture. Have a great Christmas season.