Winter in May

It may seem that Siberians harp on about the weather a bit, but I feel I have begun to understand and identify with them. The weather has so much more impact on life than a rainy Saturday does for the Auskick or netball game.

Snow lies on the ground for about 6 months of the year and the other months on either side of that are still colder than a Melbourne winter. In fact, Melbourne’s autumn, winter and spring could all fit in the summer months here, and a Melbourne summer doesn’t even get a look in. There’s a joke about there being two seasons in a Siberian year – the green winter and the white winter.

But even by Siberian standards, a dump of snow like this in the second week of May is pretty crazy weather. Spring had finally started to cause fragile buds to burst open, and then the snow returned. We had a few days of light showers, and then overnight we had this big dump. About a foot of wet snow. Leaving broken trees in its wake, and freezing new growth, which will hopefully recover enough to bloom again.

It’s supposed to be summer in three weeks.

However, it was an incredibly beautiful sight.