We've just come through a major winter storm. The heavy snowfall last night was accompanied by cloud-to-ground lightning. That's "Thundersnow!" Donder and Blitzen. But no Santa.
When I woke up this morning I asked my wife what it looked like outside. She said "It looks like Finland."
Today we're digging out from 16-17" of snow. Lots of chores. Blogging may resume tomorrow.
Photo from Webshots: "snow-covered spruces, Finland"
Do you mean to tell me that you'd rather shovel snow than blog? We had some snow here in Texas the other day--I counted 37.4 flakes not including the governor.
ReplyDeleteLightning in snow storms is usually quite beautiful. Generally the colors are muted and a deep azure or aqua in color.
ReplyDeletevery same thing happened in connecticut yesterday! giant snowstorm in the morning. giant thunderstorm early evening
ReplyDelete*psst* It's Donner, not Donder.
ReplyDelete@Amanda - that's what I remembered too. But then I looked it up while writing the post and found this...
ReplyDeletethe 1844 Clement Clarke Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of "Donder and Blitzen," rather than the original 1823 version using the Dutch spelling, "Dunder and Blixem." Both phrases translate as "Thunder and Lightning" in English, though German for thunder is now spelled Donner, and the Dutch words would nowadays be spelled Donder and Bliksem...
So I went with Donder. But on further consideration I've changed it back.
I have a fun batch of photos of the blizzard in Madison, WI, and it's aftermath once the sun came out. They can be found from here: http://eyedance.blogspot.com/2009/12/aftermath-when-sun-came-out.html
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, Nataraj. Very picture-skewy, as my dad used to say. I especially like the shots of folks playing in the snow.
ReplyDelete