April 19, 2017 7:30pm Cold like winter

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 Catlady Natascha15 Comments

Hey furends!

The weather got worse over night. The already cold wind we had these days, got much stronger today and even colder. Central Europe has gotten some really cold weather. The Alps, the valleys in between the mountains, and the surrounding areas of the Alps got a lot of snow. The temperatures dropped in general, and a very cold and strong North wind is blowing. Unfortunately, the fruit harvest is in danger of being destroyed again, like last year where up to 95% of the fruit harvest got destroyed by frost damage in late April. Which of course drove prices for the remaining regional fruit way up. A lot of people here love their regional food, and prefer that over imported food.

Some farmers try to save their trees from frost damage, by lighting small contained flames in between those trees. It just has to rise the temperature enough to keep it above freezing. They are out there day and night, keeping an eye on the flames and watching over their trees.

The streets around the Alps are totally in chaos, as it’s snowing like crazy and many people had already removed their winter tires and are now in heavy snowfall with their summer tires.

That’s the pretty amazing blue sky we had before the clouds came.

The following pictures were taken on Tuesday afternoon at 3pm. I was on my way back home from picking up some food for Murli at the Vet. The cold wind was blowing so bad at times, that it was really not funny. My hands became numb from the cold too. Thankfully I made it home before any rain came. But, the rain never came for the city. It must have come down farther south.

Today the wind is even stronger, and just as cold. This afternoon, someone forgot to close their outer windows, and so the window panes were flapping wildly and banging into the wall in the strong wind, and got busted. Now there’s broken glass on the pavement, right beside the entrance to our building.

At around noon, when I was at my doctors office, I kept hearing the noise of the wind blowing through the branches of a very tall tree, that stands in the middle of the block of buildings. Within such a block of buildings, there are often gardens and trees. That’s how they used to build many of the city blocks in old European cities.

Anyway, because I was amazed at that tall tree swaying like that, and the sound the wind kept making blowing into the branches of that tree. So I went out onto the balcony there and hoped I would be able to capture that sound with my iphone:

Murli is having a lazy day today. No wonder she feels better cuddled up on my lap, or somewhere else where it’s cuddly warm right now. She didn’t even get to enjoy a few sun puddles to hang out in. Even though the morning was seeming a bit more friendly and partly sunny for a short time, it was way too short. Murli enjoyed the fresh air though. She just rather sits a little below the window when it’s cold and especially when a cold wind is blowing. Otherwise, she would sit on the window sill like usual MOL. So I hope you all have a nice evening and you’re warm and comfy with your lovely kitties!

Everything · Murli the cat · Pictures · Places

April 6, 2017 This mornings view from Castle Hill and our Mountains

April 6, 2017April 6, 2017 Catlady Natascha2 Comments

Just thought I’d post todays view from the castle hill webcam to show you today’s weather and view. It cooled down a bit, and a cold wind is blowing, because the mountains got a little bit of snow again. It snowed down to 800m (2624 ft) and our city lies in a valley, at a height ranging from 350m (1148 ft) to 380m (1247 ft).

It’s overcast with a little bit of sun here and there. Right now it’s 10°C (50°F), but it feels much cooler due to the chilly wind. We might still get some rain later.

Here’s the view from 10am:

Since the webcam can’t look behind itself, due to the castle hill rising up higher behind it, here are some photos I took from up there in April of 2013. The mountains you can see in the back are just the lower ones, but they have snow on them, just like they do now. The mountains are all part of the alps, which rise up higher and higher behind the mountains that are visible. But the mountains are not visible from that position, because there’s another valley in between the snowy ones and the next ones.

There’s still more city to the right, but I don’t have pictures of it yet.

MountainsStyria — Source of this map: Von NordNordWest – Eigenes Werk, usingOpenStreetMap dataSRTM30 v.2 data, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30094311

The map above shows my state of Styria. The purple arrow to the bottom right just shows where north is exactly. The other smaller arrow points into the direction of the snowy mountains you see in the photos above the map. If you click on the map, it will be larger. Like I said, there’s another smaller valley behind the snowy mountains. After that small valley, there are the higher mountains. As it shows, the mountains just get higher and higher. All of the mountainous region you can see are the alps. All of it. It’s VAST. And beautiful ☺️ The highest mountain in my state is at 2995m (9826ft) and it’s called the “Dachstein” which literally translated means “Roofstone”.

Here’s an english Wikipedia article about the “Dachstein” (LINK) and a list of the highest mountains in Austria (LINK).

Just thought I’d post about it, because I was talking about mountains with some furends 😺

Murli wants her pic in the post too, just because she’s cute 😂😸