12 °C

Looking out of the window I can see blue skies and green meadows, at the same time it is trying to snow.
Yesterday I went for a stroll along the shore of the Lake of Constance.
I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and wondering why on earth I hadn't used the motorbike to get there.

The weather gods have either taken a holiday, or they have gone entirely mad!
We are used to storms passing over Europe and over the years ferries have been sunk (North Sea 1953), Coasts have been flooded (Eastern England and Holland 1962) and there have been regular storms in Northern Scotland, the Hebrides and Scandinavia. It does, however, look as if the global climate changes (be they man made or natural) are slowly moving south.
Christmas 1999 the twin Cyclones Lothar and Martin passed over Central Europe, killing over 100 people in France, Germany and Switzerland.
This year Hurricane Kyrill dropped in on Europe killing more than 40 and creating general havoc. Both Lothar and Kyrill reached top speeds of 200 kmh, Kyrill blew for two days and one night.

On my way home on Thursday evening, I passed a car that had been blown off the road, across some railway tracks and into the concrete embankment. The police came along and fined the driver for loosing control of his vehicle!
The driver was lucky that train services had been discontinued - A short while earlier, just six miles away, a 20-ton-train was lifted off the rails by the wind. I wonder if they fined the train driver too?

Meteorologists are now promising, that winter will begin next week in earnest. Temperatures will drop dramatically, they say: Snow by Tuesday and -10 °C by Thursday. Who knows - perhaps the skiing resorts will be able to switch their lifts on this season after all and prevent some businesses from going bottom-up.

Which reminds me - I'll have to check my winter tires. I've been driving around on dry roads now for four months, in the meantime they are very nearly as smooth as my summer tires!
Image courtesy of tagesanzeiger.ch