A Negative Day

Woke up to another colder than usual day for mid December here. As the readings (stored on the Wunderground web site) from my new weather station show it never reached the dizzy height of 0C all day - up to the time of writing:



My old weather station was starting to become unreliable so I invested in a new one which I installed a few days ago when the temperature was better at +3C. The indoor readout is quite spectacular:



A large display, bright and clear, readable from anywhere in the room as it is hung on the wall. It comes with the outdoor sensors as usual but also has an extra module which I have in the unheated conservatory to show temperature and humidity in there. The only reading which needs adjusting is the air pressure. That is a bit fiddly to set on this display.

I didn't really want to get out of bed this morning but eventually surfaced to the winter wonderland. Looking at some of the greenery you would be forgiven for thinking it had been snowing



but it is just days of accumulated frost building up on everything. As the ice in the bird baths is now too thick to remove easily yesterday I put out a large plant-pot saucer filled with fresh water. This morning the ice in it was 10mm thick but I managed to remove it and refill with water. The Pied Wagtail was one of the first to take advantage. That was at 9 a.m.. By midday it was frozen solid again and needed refilling.



It has been spending most of each day in the garden. As it will only search for food at ground level I scatter some seed on the grass for it to find. There appears to be a possibility we may have some snow tomorrow, Wednesday.

Misty, Icy Weather

Temperature dropped to -5.3C at one point in the early hours of the day with freezing fog. It has stayed below 0C all day with a cold mist. The area looks as though Nature has added its own Christmas decorations to everything.







I don't think the spider webs will be catching much ..



It always surprises me that this is the time of year the corkscrew Hazel starts to produce its catkins ready to open when Spring warmth returns.





Some shots were a bit hurried as my fingers were freezing but at least there was no snow, yet, so walking about was easy.

Blood Pressure and Frosty Ice Crystals

Bit of a rush first thing. This morning Penny had her blood pressure checked. We were booked in for 9.10 a.m. so I left here about 8.30 and took the main roads for a change. Mainly as they were more likely to be ice free and they were. It took a while for the vet to get a reliable BP result while I sat in the car outside twiddling my thumbs. Result - all back to normal levels so we continue with the four tablets every day. Fortunately they are all taken in one session. As they are very small they are easily hidden in her favourite food. Next BP check will be in three months time.

When we returned I could see there was plenty of frost in the areas where the Sun doesn't reach this time of year so I put some under the microscope. A couple of shots:





This time I not only remembered to choose the finest resolution but also chose a 2 second delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken. That gives any vibration time to settle down.

A Frosty Microscope

It seems yonks since I set up the LCD microscope for a session.



As a frost was forecast for this morning I thought it would be different to see the frost close up instead of pretty photos of frosty plants. To have the longest possible time to adjust the microscope focus before any frosty object thawed I set things up in the unheated greenhouse. The microscope being powered by a 5V power bank. Even so the crystals started to melt almost immediately. Anyway here are a few captures at varied magnification:







There were a few crystal spikes but they melted too fast to get a decent photo.

On This Day

30th November 2019 it is







Could have been worse - 30th November 2017 it was

Frosty Mornings

For the second morning running it was well and truly frosty on our early morning walkies.
Any pools of water in the lane were solid ice and most surfaces covered in frost.

Wheelie bin handle



Lawn



Growth on the garden pond waterfall





Fortunately this time of year it soon melts away as the Sun starts to shine.
I had a quick look at the tadpoles in the pond and was relieved to see them still moving, if somewhat slowly.

Winter Clings On

We may be having some lovely sunny days but clear skies at night can still means frosts:

This morning the temperature was just below 1C

Spiky Winter Pansies

The baskets of Winter flowering Pansies were looking a bit under the weather yesterday morning.



It had remained foggy or thick mist most of the day with the temperature struggling to get up to 0C

It surprised me when the frost on the Summer House roof melted but immediately re-froze as icicles:



We had a few flurries of snow last night but most had melted by this morning. The Pansy flowers have perked up and are back to a nice display of Winter colour. No sign of icicles with the temperature now at 2C.

Frosty

At -4C with freezing fog everything ended up covered in frost this morning.











All taken with an iPhone 6s

Jack Pays a Visit

Crawled out of bed half an hour later than usual. Ablutions over I checked the outside temperature. 7.4C. Not too bad. Sky 90% clear. Sun rising. What a surprise as I felt the grass crunch underfoot as I checked the back garden for doggy deposits before we went walkabout.

Jack Frost had been a-visiting.





Frost patterns on the top of a plastic garden store:





On our perambulation through the village it was obvious the roads had been salted.
After breakfast I had a look at my weather recordings for this morning:



There had been a steady overnight drop in air temperature to 4.3C with no breeze.

Frosty Bin

The lid of a wheelie bin covered with frost patterns:

Shivery Sunday

Brrrrrr

First frost of this back end. Over night minimum 1.1C

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Frost

5 focus stacked photos

13 focus stacked photos

Jack Frost Strikes Again

This time it was the beautiful fern like patterns of frost on the greenhouse glass which caught my attention. These were taken with the Nikon S9050, processed in Photomatrix Pro and then in Irfanview as the originals have very little contrast:









Each window had a different pattern. I was lucky as they had all melted within 15 minutes of these photographs being taken.