Crete weather phenomena

[Carolina]

Tomorrow, February 13th is the anniversary of the heavy snow fall in Crete which brought the island to a halt for 2 days in 2004. Temperatures dropped to -1oC.
Some good pictures here: http://www.uk.digiserve.com/mentor/crete/snow.htm

Another strange weather phenomenon in Crete is the 'red rain' or Sahara dust. This usually occurs in March or April when southerly winds bring sand storms to Crete.
See pictures here
http://www.explorecrete.com/various/sahara-crete.htm

We also get the odd tornado.
Then there's the floods of course, like last year in October:
http://www.livingincrete.net/photos

[Jean]

You are right, 13th February 2004. I also have a few pictures of the event at http://www.west-crete.com/crete-photos- ... y-2004.htm

A friend of mine who is a meteorologist wrote the following interesting comment to the new temperature record:

"Note that, concerning the temperature, it has happened several times to be close to 0C (0.5,1,1.5..), but it had never been below zero close to the coast. However it happened on 13/2/2004, when we had -1C at noon! The next night I measured -3C at Kalathas, but unfortunately, for a strange reason, both our university instruments and the EMY ones failed that night and we do not have official records. "

Jean

[Carolina]

Maybe the instruments froze in shock?!

Glad you posted the link to your snow pics Jean - I'd just been searching for them and couldn't find them.

[paulh]

just a link to a few of my photos that go along with the general "extreme weather" theme....thats if the link works of course

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56856851@N00/?saved=1

well it seemed to work.

They are best viewed large size

[Kinda]

Wonderful photographs, thank you.