We had an unusually warm December, which ended with a brief thaw on the last day of the year. It actually rained for a short time late on New Year's Eve. Since then it cooled down dramatically and today we awoke to a temperature of -24°C. I took these images today at 12:30 pm only 27 minutes from solar noon at 12:57 pm. The average snow depth near my site was 260 mm. Some of this snow is quite icy due to the freezing of the slightly thawed snow several days ago.
When it gets this cold you start to notice how sounds change with the cold temperatures. The colder it gets, the louder the sounds. As I finished taking the photos, a plane flew overhead and it seemed as if it was going to land right on top of me it was so loud!
We are enjoying a few more minutes of daylight each day. Today, the sun rose at 10:53 am and set at 3:01 pm for a total daylength of 4 hours 8 minutes. That is a gain of 27 minutes since Winter Solstice.
