∞ Infinite rain ∞

Ok, guys, let’s face it: It always has been raining, it’s raining right now and it will never stop raining again until the end of the world!

Never ever I have expected such a rainy autumn! Since I’ve been back from the hiking tour on the Kungsleden it rained most of the days and in the spare moments without precipitation it was cloudy anyway.

Sometimes it was windstill, sometimes it was stormy, but it rained. Either as a steady rain or more like a curtain of a dense fog or sometimes as a series of cloudbursts. So my daily outfit has been almost the same for weeks: A sturdy rain parka and rubber boots.

Rubber boots became my standard shoes

Of course the sun came out little here and there but mostly just for a short time. I can count the days with much sun with the fingers of one hand. And I don’t need all fingers!

Today I looked at one of the many puddles of water. It was some centimetres deep. Some yellow leaves – probably victims of last night’s squalls – floated have under the water surface, which was rippled by the ongoing rain. And then I saw it:

The Sign Of Infinity!

∞ Infinite rain ∞

I looked at the sign and all at once I got the dreadful message: It always has been raining, it’s raining right now and it will never stop raining again until the end of the world!

Addendum (11 October)

If I understand the weather statistics of the school Balderskolan in Skellefteå correctly, we got 63mm of rain yesterday. That’s more rain than the average precipitation  in Skellefteå all October! No wonder, that some of the puddles in Bonnstan were more than 15 cm deep. Since these puddles were covered with yellow birch leaves it looked really beautiful. What a pity, that I only had my iPhone to shoot this image:

Bonnstan – Skellefteå or Venice?

 

A first glimpse of winter

I’m sitting in the bus travelling to Skellefteå to go to work. This time I don’t travel from Skelleftehamn as usual but from Umeå where Annika and I landed yesterday evening after our one-week journey through Scotland.

While it was warm in Scotland (hardly below 10 °C, up to 17 °C) it is quite cold in Northern Sweden. Not really wintry cold, but cold enough that the lakes start to freeze over and precipitation is more snow than rain.

Snow shower on the E4 near Skellefteå

Time to change to dubbdäck – to studded tyres!

Wet snow and slush

It snowed the last days and it’s snowing right now in Skelleftehamn.

In Skelleftehamn it already snowed this morning but it was too warm and the snow didn’t settle.

In town it was slightly colder, but with temperatures still above zero the snow was very wet and soon became damp, slowly transforming into puddles of snow slush.

Anyway it’s still the end of October so it may take a while till the first real winter snow.

Snow tracks in Skellefteå

The autumn leaves …

Most bushes and trees have realised, that summer is history and even autumn has come to an end. They all shed their leaves in the last weeks. Only the lilacs are quite stubborn and try to keep their leafage with all their might.

The cold wind gusts of the last night however did not only bring a bit of snow but also started to tear of the still green lilacs leaves. One of these leaves landed on my car hood where it slowly snowed over.

A snowed in leaf on my car hood

So lilacs beware, winter is on its way!

Freezing over

One cold night and the big lake Snesviken starts to freeze over. Even the sheltered bay between mainland and the near island Storgrundet is partly covered with a very thin layer of new ice.

Freezing over – Baltic Sea at StorgrundetFreezing over – the lake Snesviken

This ice however won’t last long. Either it will melt when days get warmer again or the next wind will break it apart.