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Friday 15 February 2013

It's graupelling....



Yes, I did say graupelling.... no I'd never heard of it before either..... but apparently that is what it was doing on Wednesday.... horizontal graupelling even..... um... that's soft hail or snow pellets, in case you were wondering. Take a look here for the explanation.....

It stuck onto the side of things - only the side of this car was covered!! This was Irene delivering some laundry to me. My washing machine has been behaving improperly so she kindly put some laundry through her machine. What a friend to deliver clean washing in a blizzard!! Actually she was on her way down to the post office at the Lighthouse where she is Deputy Post-Mistress on a Wednesday. Um... she didn't get any customers....


The graupel stuck to the side of the windows in thick sheets of ice.



Which then broke off in chunks.... at the Lighthouse it was falling from the tower in huge chunks apparently, making it hazardous to go outdoors.



And then the next day....sunshine again!! This photo was taken by a friend out walking in Orphir, looking back to the hills of Hoy.



9 comments:

  1. Just wait a while, the weather will change. Same thing here (only not so picturesque). And our weather guy told us just the other day about graupel. 8^)

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  2. LOL! In Orkney the saying is "Wait an hour and the weather will change". I'd never heard of graupel until this week - someone on Facebook mentioned it. See, with the internet you can get answers to questions you didn't even know you wanted to ask. LOL!

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  3. Well, that's a new one on me too. I knew you had plenty of 'weather' in Orkney, but little did I know that you have weather the rest of us have never heard of!
    Hope your machine sorts itself out soon - for Irene's sake as well as for yours. :)

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    1. Fortunately no more graupelling! Washing machine not worth repairing so the long-suffering Irene is still doing my washing! New one on it's way soon I hope...

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  4. Graupelling - what a perfect word to add to my vocabulary - I just hope I won't have to use it too often now we have moved away from the moor!

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    1. I hope you are enjoying the beginnings of Spring in your new home?

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  5. Brilliant word for an uncomfortable experience, Sian. Glad it didn't last.

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    1. I love words and I love learning new ones. Though I hope I don't need to use this one very often. LOL!

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