Who left the fridge open?

Last Monday was a particularly gray and miserable day. In and around Brussels some light, so-called ‘moth’ snow fell. For a few hours it stuck to hedges and grass. The roads remained clear though and traffic was fluid, except during the usual evening rush hour, between 4 and 7 p.m. All day temperatures oscillated around +5°C.

When I left for work at half past six on Tuesday morning, the thermometer in my car indicated a skinny +3°C inside my garage and -1°C once I was on the road. This morning however, the garage temperature had dropped to an even skinnier +0.5°C and by the time I was 1 km up the road, it had dropped to a bone-shivering -8°C. Clearly someone up there had left the refrigerator door open!

It isn’t as if we haven’t been warned though. Since last weekend our friendly weather man Frank has been telling us about the Siberian bear that was lurking in its cage in northern Russia and the increasing probability that it would soon break free to invade Western Europe. Apparently it did so overnight.

This afternoon: a British Airway plane taking off from Brussels' Airport
against a steel blue sky. I wonder what the temperature is like up there!

Despite the steel blue sky and the radiant sun, the north-easterly wind makes it feel as if it is 10°C below zero right now. And worse is yet to come, with forecasts of -12°C in Brussels and as low as -18°C in the east of the country. Not something I look forward to, but as long as it stays dry, I don’t mind too much, although it will probably affect my gas bill.