Symi Chat

Hi Trailer, where did that little galloping icon come from?

Woke up to a strange noise comming from the roof this morning ,RAIN RAIN RAIN,its actually raining

You could have had some (all!) of ours, Kon. The field behind my house is beginning to look like the Lake District!

Raining here too - and we certainly need it.

Still raining...

Here too At least it will wash the fine sand off my car - blown inland by the gales yesterday

Symi might be short of rain, but we've had more than enough here in Britain! It was surprising to read in the paper a day or so ago that the hosepipe bans imposed during the summer in southern England when water was undoubtedly short, have only just been lifted. (With all the rain that we've been having over what is laughingly referred to as 'winter' , I'd completely forgotten about this!) Now at long last the forecast for the weekend is for colder weather - though not seriously cold, still a few degrees above freezing so probably not enough to kill off the bugs.

I'm off to Vienna for a few days on Monday - the forecast there likewise is for temperatures a few degrees above freezing as opposed to the 10-15 degrees which it has been recently. I'd been hoping for some invigorating frost and snow!

Here's another Symi weather forecast page for you, Adriana:

http://www.weather.com/weather/print/GRXX0066

perhaps it will give you better weather.

At least there has been some relief for our fire fighters ,they say that 45percent of our state was burnt We got some good rain and more is expected next week.What is happening in Europe we have been watching tv and it looks like your weather has gone crazy too.

It's raining in Denmark today, really bad actually. Several highways has been closed by the police due to the amount of water on them

Cooler weather is expected next week, with temperatures below zero and snow... I wonder what kind of damage THAT would do to roads, pavements etc etc

[quote="Trailer"]

Phew. Generally this obsession with climate change just wears me out. Just too suspicious of too many 'experts' with too many vested interests to jump this band wagon... [/quote]
I wish I could share your doubts about global warming. Unfortunately, unless you believe that all the scientists who measure atmospheric and sea temperatures, and all those who study the retreat of glaciers, are part of some gigantic conspiracy to mislead us, one has to accept recent rises in temperature as an established fact. Likewise the increase in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases' is another established fact.

The $64,000 question is of course whether these two observations are or are not related as cause and effect. Any fool with a knowledge of elementary physics and atmospheric chemistry can predict that greenhouse gases could lead to rises in temperature - the issue is whether they are actually responsible for all or most of the observed warming. For me and most other scientists/ environnmentalists, the answer was put essentially beyond doubt some years ago when modelling became sufficiently sophisticated to predict just how much warming there ought in theory to be, and those predictions were worryingly close to the experimental results.

That said, the area in which politicians and legislators are undoubtedly struggling - and where I agree with you about jumping on bandwagons - is deciding what actually to do about it. Most of the actions taken or suggested so far are frankly gesture politics - anything with any chance of stabilising temperatures sufficiently close to their current levels is going to be both difficult and fiendishly expensive. I fear that I include the much-vaunted Kyoto protocol in this. George Bush was probably right to refuse to commit the USA to it - if only he had come up with a more effective solution instead of shutting his eyes to the whole affair.

Two weeks ago the Financial Times reported on a study for the European Commission, as yet unpublished, analysing what global warming was likely to mean for the countries of the EU. Northern Europe comes off fairly well, with its agriculture in particular benefitting from increases in temperature and in the length of the growing season - it's the Mediterranean (including Symi) which will suffer most by becoming unreasonably hot. Or, as one of my former colleagues used to put it when lecturing on the importance of taking heed of the threats posed by global warming, if he was unsuccessful in getting that message across he could at least have the consolation of enjoying his retirement in a Mediterranean climate on the beach at Reading!

When I woke up this morning the world had turned white and it is still snowing. Temp around zero. They told us last week but nobody believed it. Even if the temp stays around zero rest of the month it has been the hottest January ever in Denmark. We havn't seen much to the birds lately, there was enough food around in the garden but now they are at the terrace where I'm feeding them and our cats watching trying to catch them. But ginger cats are clear visible in the snow so no luck so far .

Anything that changes Reading would only be a bonus, especially if the forecasts were incorrect and it vanished beneath the sea.

Just been out to buy gyros for supper (working late on the newspaper... ops: ).

The Proteus is docked stern-to below our window and the crew have a BBQ going, one of those DIY ones made out of a gas bottle sawn in half with the other half forming a hinged lid. The whole thing is balanced on angle-iron legs. Eat your heart out, Weber.

They are all gathered round, warming their hands over the coals, waiting for the embers to be just right for cooking fish.

Ooooh I can smell the grilled fish from here Adriana!

Any chance of a picture for the out and about page?

Too dark I'm afraid. My camera's not much cop for night shots...

Hi! Being a new guy and as a Canadian, I thought I ought to straighten up this weather debate. Our "low" so far this winter was -30C. But the brolly I bought in Rhodes during October remains unused. However, I shall bring it to beautiful Symi in May- I recall the downpour of October 18(?)

Welcome to our Chat Page!

Hi MacDuff, welcome to the page and thanks for putting our weather debate in perspective!

You have to remember though that in Britain moaning about the weather is the national sport (it used to be cricket but we're giving the Australians a bash at that for a while).

Your mention of the brolly you bought in Rhodes brought to mind something that's puzzled me for a while: Why are there so many brolly shops in Rhodes Town? I noticed this a few years ago when I was stuck on Rhodes overnight thanks to a delayed flight. Just wandering around the town I must have come across three or four shops that appeared to sell nothing but brollies. I guess I could have accidentally wandered into the Rhodes brolly quarter or perhaps the "First Mythos Of The Holiday" had more of an effect than usual but it all seemed very strange.

I think I have heard that Rhodos has several brolly factories and are famous for it. If you have been in Greece when it really is raining you would understand why.