Back to "Normal" Weather ... our snowman melted

Feb 14: Mik tried to fix the snowman's nose but was not successful

After more than a week of winter weather, Aberdeen normal weather returned. More snow was dumped all day Thursday last week even though it was not freezing temperature. No chaos on the road since the snow quickly melted away. Also everyone would probably get used to the snow after 2 weeks ... at least I would have thought so but the lady I met on Thursday disagrees because she dislike the snow. It has been getting "warmer" ever since with outside temperature of 8 degree C when I went to work today. Felt a bit strange (but glad) that I don't have to scrape any frost from my car for the last couple of days. Our happy snowman outside the house just could not stand the "heat" and getting shorter but not yet disappear.

Feb 15: Snowman's head fell off altogether

Feb 16: Upper body shrunk

Feb 17: Left with lower body

Escape to Stavanger, Norway

This is the third time that I visited Stavanger. The first time was more than 7 years ago when I was visiting a family friend with my wife. The second time was just last year in September or so. This time I was curious to see if the snow in Aberdeen will rival the snow in Stavanger ... and I was not disappointed. There are a lot more snow on the ground in Stavanger, though the 3 days that I was there were bright and sunny. Almost everyone that I met was talking about the skiing they did over the past weekend and planning of more skiing in the weeks ahead. Apparently there are very nice places to ski a short drive away from Stavanger.

Beautiful sunrise on Monday morning

Stavanger is much closer to Aberdeen than London. Flight from Aberdeen to Stavanger takes only 45 minutes while to London is about an hour. According to Google Earth, driving from Aberdeen to London will take 9 hours 38 minutes over the distance of 537 miles while driving to Stavanger will take 18 hours 35 minutes over a distance of 632 miles ... ? I guest sitting in a ferry crossing the North Sea from Newcastles to Stavanger can be considered driving. 
Like Aberdeen, Stavanger has a lot of granite. In fact there's several road with tunnels through the hills where I think they got their granite. Unlike Aberdeen, Stavanger buildings and houses are more modern, colorful and they are not made of granite. They seems to use granite to reclaim or flatten land rather than build buildings and houses.

Full moon on Monday night

Fountain in Breiavatnet in front of the hotel

Full moon above street light

Shops are closed but street was nicely lit

Harbour - there's actually swans following me

There's a lot of construction in Stavanger. I was a little late going to the office in Tananger this morning in the taxi due to heavy traffic. There was traffic back up at the road construction area and the taxi driver took a detour via Sola. When I was leaving the office today to go to the airport, no one was allowed to go outside for a while because blasting was ongoing and there was loud siren to warn people to stay away. The building actually shaken the moment the blast went off.

View in Tananger area

Constructions outside the building in Tananger area

For the 3 days that I was away, Aberdeen has not been snowing but having really cold weather instead with temperature dropped to as low as -15 degree C on Monday while Stavanger was just around -4 degree C. So I managed to escape the really cold temperature. When my plane landed in Aberdeen, however, it was snowing at the airport ... here we go again ...

Beautiful Sunday

It was really beautiful in Aberdeen today. Fresh snow fell last night. The sun was out giving cheer to the day. The birds were chirping away as we were leaving for church. The temperature at our house was -3 degrees C and raised to 0 degree by afternoon. Not many cars on the road and Union Street was rather quiet compared to previous Sundays. On the way home we stopped by my office to pick up something I forgot to bring for my trip out of town. Quite a few cars are abandoned in the parking lot. Along the way at Garthdee area, there were plenty kids actually ski down the slope next to Asda. Back at home, Mik could not resist but spent her time outside with the snowman once again. I was busy packing otherwise I probably would have joined her ...


Morning view in front of our house


Union Street was not buzzing as usual


Some car abandoned over the weekend at the office

Mik and I with our happy snowman

Another Day Another Snow Story

The episode of snow in Aberdeen is not over. Today the day started with another beautiful morning and the sun was out bright and sunny. This was especially nice since it is Saturday. The view outside the window looked fantastic with white blanket of snow everywhere. For once my front lawn look as good as our neighbour's ... By 11 am, fresh snow started to fall again as seen from inside our conservatory. The glass roof is covered with snow from the last 3 days.

This time it didn't snow for too long so we went out to pick up our friends who just returned from a 3 week holiday. Their first day back in Aberdeen was spent digging out their car, shoveling driveway and making a huge snowman with Mik.

One of our neighbours was also out today shoveling snows from his driveway and the road in front of our house. This road is shared among 4 houses and it was really kind of him to clear snows for a pretty long stretch of road. I can't even clear all the snows from my own driveway. My excuse: his shovel is bigger than mine!

He said the fact that the sun was out made it so nice to be outside ... and he got his fireplace going so he would enjoy sitting by the fireplace with some drinks afterwards.

After we had our rest in the house, nice and cozy, Mik reminded us that we are yet to go sledding as was promised to her yesterday. So we went to a slope within our neighbourhood where other kids were also sledding. Some of them have built a nice ramp and making stunts. I took some pictures when they are in the air ... and sometime crashed!

Mik also had a great time sledding. She had her own moment when she was flying in the air over a gentler ramp. Since the sun was setting it was getting really cold. I was busy taking pictures and I could not feel my fingers within such short period of time so I went home before Mik and her mom. 
It was a very nice evening. The moon was out. If only it was not unbearably freezing cold temperature, I would have stayed outside for a much longer time.

Snow Keep Coming

Most Aberdonian thought that today will be sunny ... at least that was the weather forecast. The forecast was actually accurate but only in the morning. By afternoon the sun started to disappear and the snow returns with a vengeance! 

Morning sun

Afternoon snow

Empty car park in the evening 

Most people left left the office when there were still daylight. That was the same time when it was still snowing so the road outside my office turned into a "parking lot". Cars were barely moving. Though things could get worse at night - more snow or road becomes icy - I decided to stay back and continue working. That was the right decision indeed. By the time I drove home, the roads were clear of snow and there was very few cars on the road. The funny thing was ... it rained along the way ... sunny, snow and rain in one day - this is Aberdeen!

More Snow

Morning view in front of our house

Second day of snow in Aberdeen. This time it was heavy snow during the morning rush hour. Took me a while to remove all the snow from my car. The road within the housing area was not ploughed or gritted but that's OK because it's on flat ground. I can easily drive over the snow. The main road within the housing area was not bad because more cars have passed through. The problem is at the end of this road is a rather steep slope downhill. Not only that, the bottom of the hill is where it meets the main road to town and is controlled by a traffic light. Yesterday I drove really slow here and still skidded a little but I didn't have to stop since the light was green. Today the snow was heavier ... and the light was red ... but so far so good as I drove even slower and maintain large distance to the car in front. No skid. I turned into the main road just to join the long jam. I got my camera with me so I'm sort of prepared to capture interesting event along the way.

Traffic crawling on North Deeside Road	Clearing the sidewalk in front of Robert Gordon U
Die-hard bikers - one with a guitar!	Office car park with fresh snow on cars

It was actually not that cold. Outside temperature was 1 degree Celsius so ice should not be an issue. In fact the DJ on the radio commented that in some parts of Aberdeen it was actually snow and rain at the same time. His colleagues then said shouldn't it be called "sleet". The DJ replied that sleet is actually snow and ice and that a new word should be created for snow and rain called "snain"! He then went on to announce the name of 133 schools around Aberdeen that were closed. Mik's school was not one of them. Aberdeen airport was also closed due to the snow.

I decided to take a detour from the long queue on North Deeside Road. As expected the small road that I was on was a lot more slippery. A Mercedes has to turn around since it cannot climb a gentle slope (due to rear wheel drive). I skidded a little even at such slow speed ... but the detour paid off as the road on the other side has less traffic. One slope downhill and another uphill and I'll be "home free". The slope toward Garthdee claimed one victim when I was passing through. A car skidded coming uphill toward Robert Gordon U. Two guys were trying to push the car with long queue of cars behind them. Good thing I'm on the opposite direction - going downhill that is not as steep as the slope close to my house. The road going North on Anderson Drive was filled with cars backed up all the way to Garthdee bridge. Thankfully I didn't have to go that way. One last slope to go ... was hoping that I won't have to stop on the slope but because of the roundabout and several cars in front of me - stopping on the slope was unavoidable. I skidded and swerved slightly as I started to move again, which was a great relief. I got to the office after 45 minutes - not too bad - the main thing is ... the car and me are scratch free! As I was walking into the building, my wife called. She was still stuck in traffic on the way to Mik's school even though she left more than half an hour earlier than me.

Sun came out in the afternoon	View from office window
Sunset over snow covered rooftops	Aberdeen winter sunset at closer look

The snow did not just stopped in the afternoon, the sun actually came out to brighten the day but did not melt the snows away. Going home in the evening was much more pleasant since there were less traffic and the roads were cleared - just need to be watchful for ice since the temperature was 0 degree Celsius. At home my driveway is still full of snow and part of it is compacted into ice ... I hope this will not cause havoc on me tomorrow.

In car park leaving the office	Compacted snow in driveway at home