Back to Frost

I fully intend to return to Kathmandu (in this blog at least) and tie up some loose ends, but for the moment I am very much back to Norway and early winter. After a few days here I have made a few observations regarding changes in the ground plane and in the sky above.

First, most of the earth is now frosty, maybe demonstrating the beginnings of a phenomenon of 'permafrost' which I can only begin to imagine. Growing up, I remember frost from winter mornings. I would wake up and wait for the school bus as the sun was just rising and all around, particularly in grassy areas, there laid a light dusting of slippery white that faded within the first hour of the sun being up. Here, I notice some differences - the frost stays, the sun does neither comes to shine on it nor has the power to melt it into dew with the passing of the day.

These photos were taken around 2pm, what should be near the warmest point of the day (and the air temperature is a bit above freezing). Please note that this is not snow - it hasn't snowed since I came back, and these frosty areas are in openings of forest that theoretically would see sunlight. Beyond grass fields, the frost also hits gravel roads and asphalt surfaces in a thick manner, appearing innocent enough but making walking paths extremely slick.

As for the sun and the sky, its habits this time of year here are quite peculiar. The first few days back in Trondheim I woke early and found myself waiting for the sun to come up the rest of the way to begin the day - only it didn't, and it doesn't. Rather than tracing a high arc through the sky, in winter at this latitude the sun actually makes a horizontal movement - appearing on the left of the sky around 7:30 in the morning and moving directly to the right through the course of the day, not to be seen again after 4:30. The result is a peculiar early morning feel through the entire day, but often an extremely beautiful indirect glow above the (ever present) clouds above.

11:30 am

4:30 pm