Still snowing

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Snow fell again today in Israel!
Thanks to friend RDE, who lives in Jerusalem, for sharing her photographs from the city.

Western Wall

Damascus Gate

Meah Shearim 

 Ethiopian church

 

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Russian Compound

tram on Jaffa Street 

outside the Old City wall

Dome of the Rock and Mt. of Olives

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Snow days

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Parts (the higher parts) of Israel are getting some rare snow!

These are pictures of the Jerusalem Hills from January 2013 when I still lived there.
But, same idea, snow is snow.

Now I live in the southern desert at only a bit over 400 meters altitude, not high or cold enough for more than rain.
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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Deserted streets of snowy Jerusalem (by guest photographer)

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Thanks to "ester," my friend who lives in Jerusalem, for taking these photos Friday morning and sharing them with us all.

Walking in the street up the hill toward the New Gate of the Old City.

A giant Christmas tree and Santa Claus with real snow.

 Only one woman praying at the Western Wall.

The shuttered shops inside the Old City at 8:56 a.m..

The golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
On the horizon, the Mount of Olives.
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More about Israel's snow storm in my previous posts and in the newspapers, e.g.  the Jerusalem Post.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Snow is getting dangerous

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Photo by my friend "ester"

The snow continues to fall in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Hills, in the Galilee and Golan, in the West Bank, and in the highest altitudes of the Negev.
No one expected so much snow (over 47 cm right now)  and for so many days.
What began as fun and pretty has turned into a national emergency.
The worst is that some 30,000 households are still without power.
With below-freezing temperatures it will be a cold night for these families with no heat.

Drivers are told to stay home.
Hundreds got stuck in snow on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway last night and waited up to 10 or 12 hours to be rescued.
The police and the municipalities could not cope and called in the army.
They were taken to Binyanei HaUma convention center which quickly became a "refugee center" for a thousand people. 

Streets inside Jerusalem were impassable and even the tram slipped off its tracks.
Trees are breaking or toppling over from the weight of the snow.

For us living down in the Negev the rain will continue tomorrow.
In my town, Meitar, we had trees down from fierce winds and some flooding in schools and public buildings.
In my apartment the electricity, telephone, Internet, and cable TV takes turns going on and off for the last few days.

I will be happy to see the sun again.

You can keep up with the bad situation through our local newspapers, e.g.
 http://www.timesofisrael.com/
 http://www.jpost.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/

Shabbat shalom
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A rare snow paints Jerusalem white

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Photo by my friend "ester" who lives in Jerusalem 

Haha, the Cool Globes exhibition in Jerusalem was meant to warn against global warming and today the globes were covered with snow.
They were not just cool but downright freezing!

The capital city is getting three days of snow.
So far it is up to 15 centimeters in some neighborhoods.
See news at  timesofisrael.com/as-snow-begins-to-fall-in-jerusalem-school-called-off/

My friend code-named ester went out in the snow and took pictures and emailed me some.
But it was a day I really wanted to be back in Jerusalem in person.
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For more about Cool Globes see my summer posts here and here .
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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KAI in snow, with curious cat

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In last week's rare and not-long-lasting snow I wrote my grandson's name, planning to e-mail the picture to him in Los Angeles.

Kai has not yet seen snow, Californian that he is.  

Meanwhile a stray cat walked into my photo. 

Now, looking at the enlarged version on screen, I try to figure out the tomcat's strange stance:

alert?  afraid?

assuming attack mode? 

being careful to avoid snow? 

about to jump up to the shed roof?

studying the grapevine's shadow? 

listening for a bird? 

catching scent of a she-cat? 

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Maybe the animal observers at Camera-Critters know?

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(P.S.  There is another animal, a HUGE rubber duck, in the previous post!)

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And if you missed the snow pictures last week, look at

Jerusalem of White   

and

my village under 10 inches of snow. 

Cats in snow

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If you have looked at my blog for the past two days you  know that the Jerusalem region was treated to a rare snowfall on Thursday.
Ten inches!

It was only the second time in her life for 6-year-old Shachar to feel snow underfoot.
She walked through it as gingerly as possible. 
Two legs down, two legs up, way up.

Lara, Shachar's mother, wanted nothing of it.
She tried to stay high and dry.

The little cat paw prints looked delicate,

compared to the much bigger canine prints.
Or--maybe this was the jackal I saw in the snow of 2008!

(All photos can be much enlarged.)

(A post for Camera Critters.)
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Jerusalem of White

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A friend who lives in Jerusalem started out early in the morning yesterday to capture all the beautiful snow-clad places, and now she graciously shares them with you and me.
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Click and then click again to enlarge her photos. 

The tram had its first baptism of snow!
And to encourage people not to attempt to drive on the slippery roads, the tram was free of charge for a few days. 

The yellow JCB doubled as a snowplow.
The Municipality was ready with tons of salt to spread, too.
They had fifty vehicles dedicated to the one rare snow day.

We got about 25 cm or 10 inches of snow.
The palm trees at Safra Square, City Hall, took it well. 

Everybody was excited about our snow.

Families worked together to build snowmen, this one near Jaffa Gate.

People kept on praying.
The Western Wall is never alone.

From the rooftops of the Old City, the gorgeous view of a white Mount of Olives and the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock powdered with snow!
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Thank you, Friend, for these rare photographs.
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Pictures of my white village in the snowy Jerusalem Hills are in yesterday's post.
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SNOW at last!

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(All photos can be enlarged with a click and then another click.)

"Shalom and welcome! I'm the banana-mouthed snowman of Dina's village in the Jerusalem Hills!"

YES,  SNOW!!
For the first time in five years, our moshav woke up to a white winter wonderland.

Here's the other side of my street.

This is the first and only time I saw chains on a car wheel in Israel.
Wait a minute--are those paperclips??

In the foreground is my yard; on the far horizon to the right, Jerusalem sits in a cloud of its own snow.

By late morning the temperature was rising to above freezing and wet snow started sliding off trees onto my neck.   brrr!

The sun came out for a few minutes and I saw some blue sky for the first time this week.

Oops.  Who's got a chainsaw to open the path?

The red geranium didn't know what hit it.

Nor did the ktalav, the Eastern Strawberry tree.

The olive trees were straining under the weight of wet snow.

The green grass of winter looked so bright in the sunlight.

After 2.5 hours of picture-taking I came home and the precipitation was already becoming  more like rain.
But Jerusalem was again visible across the valley.
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It was impossible for me to get into the city because the buses stopped running.
But you can see Jerusalem snow pictures in the newspapers:
The Times of Israel
Jerusalem Post
And about the weather damage all over the country:  Ynet
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It's snowing!! Yay!

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With all this week's heavy rain in Israel everything is green and growing.
It is almost midnight now, but by morning all this will be WHITE!!

Yes, snow is starting to fall and to stick now, even in my village!
And up in Jerusalem for sure.
Photos for you tomorrow, God willing! 
I can hardly wait for morning. 
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Ice skating in a tent in Jerusalem!

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There, next to the date palm trees--can you guess what the blue machinery will be for?
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I walked by Safra Square (Jerusalem Municipality) last Thursday and saw lots of activity.

They are building an ice rink in a tent!

And apparently the hoses will create air cold enough to freeze water.

A crane set down a container
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and the men started transporting equipment into the long tent.

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There are already two cages full of ice skates! In Jerusalem!

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The rink will be open from tomorrow, March 10, until April 14.

Adults pay 40 shekels (about $11), kids up to age 16 pay 30 shekels (~ $8) for half an hour, skate rental included.
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I read here that "The opening will feature a skating display and Israel’s Ice Hockey League is planning a night hockey tournament on 4 nights during the short season."

More info about the Snow Festival at a Hebrew website.

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Just in time for opening day, real snow is predicted for Jerusalem tomorrow, something quite rare!

Let's hope it happens!

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UPDATE: No snow.
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Wild weather in the Middle East

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"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
. . . "
The events in Israel over the past twelve days sometimes made me think of Robert Frost's poem. A few days after our forest fire inferno, winter suddenly struck the country with snow, rain, gale force winds, and a sandstorm.
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The photo, albeit from December 2008, shows how weird and dark the sun gets over Jerusalem during a duststorm.
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From Friday until today I shut myself into the house, but still the fine particles entered.
They entered my eyes and nose and throat. Oi .
Jerusalem suffered with ten times the "legal" amount of air pollution until this morning when some rain washed our air.
Ahh, so nice to breathe again.
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The 9-meter waves battered the Mediterranean coast and did great damage.
A Turkish ship sank 8 miles from Ashdod Port, with all crew members rescued.
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Everything that could blow over did so. Huge damage to agriculture. And the hothouse flowers meant for Europe's Christmas markets.
Thousands of trees down. On people inside their cars, and on electric wires. Thousands of residents are still without electricity.
Trees on the railroad tracks stopped the trains. No visibility closed airports for a while. The waves were too dangerous for ships to dock. Winds gusting to 110 km/h were too much for cars on the highways.
Flooding of streets and houses.
Schools were closed in the northern Golan Heights due to snow.
Mt. Hermon already has 120 cm of snow.
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Land mines from previous wars in the Golan Heights have washed down or shifted positions.
Future hikers are warned to stay on marked trails.
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The homeless (2000 known to the welfare authorities and ~ 1000 not known) are being offered shelter and hot meals and showers to save them from the freezing cold.
Jerusalem, the coldest city, is down to 7-8 degrees C (about 45 F).
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But our neighbors are also suffering. We are all in this together!
The low pressure zone and SW winds blew sand from Egypt and wild weather into Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In Egypt 18 are dead from the storm.
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May we all make it through this latest trial, and soon.
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Such is our world in the Middle East, these last few days, for That's My World Tuesday.
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