Sunday, February 22, 2015

It hain't no use to grumble and complane

The weather continues to be wet. We got a little bit of new snow during the night, and that is melting away, temperature is at +2 °C. Depth of snow is 16 cm, which is 1 cm less than yesterday.

I visited with my daughter Nuuksio National Park yesterday, starting from the parking place by lake Haukkalampi. It seemed to be a long time since last visiting Haukkalampi, and I guess it was, as searching through the postings the previous mention of Haukkalampi was from April 2013.

At Haukkalampi the parking place wasn't empty, but not crowded either, probably because of snow/rain. The paths were mostly in good shape, though the snow had turned to slush in some places, and there was some ice on the path as well. The landscape was less winter-like than in 2013 when we visited Haukkalampi several times, but still not bad, there was a touch of wilderness thanks to the silence and lack of other people.

The photographs were taken on February 2nd, which was a wet day.

(Posting title is from the poem Wet-weather Talk by James Whitcomb Riley.)

2 comments:

PB said...

A question about gloves in the winter.
Where I live, the temperatures range from -12C to -18C or even colder much of the winter. What gloves work for taking pictures with smaller digital cameras when it is cold out?
I'm missing lots of great pictures because it is balky to take off my glove and then my hand gets cold!
-- Brian

Juha Haataja said...

I'm using my bicycle commute gloves, of which I have several types for different weather conditions, from above 0 °C to below -20 °C. The warmest are of lobster claw type, made by SealSkinz. Keeping the wrists warm is essential, as this is the place where the cold really hits the hands.

However, this winter we haven't had any really cold weather so far, the coldest has been about -10 °C, which isn't that cold at all. Also, rigorous walking makes blood circulate rather well, and thus short exposure to cold isn't a problem. In fact, one day when we had -4 °C and rather strong wind, I forgot the gloves home, and managed to take photographs quite well, occasionally warming the hands in jacket pockets.

Another approach is to use layers. And then there are ice-fishing gloves etc. which could be useful.

However, the feeling of cold seems to be somewhat dependent on each individual. Also, getting used to coldness means a lot. If there is a long cold period and you work outside, the body adapts to it.