Snow

Some say "at last", I said "so soon". Indeed, snow has arrived this week, much earlier than the previous years. In the end, it does not matter so much: the temperature is cold, the sun is barely shining, the days are short. Winter has arrived.Of course, most of you would have noticed that these pictures were all taken in Berne. Well, these is a very good reason for that: Snow has not fallen in Geneva! I always tease my work colleagues about the crappy weather in Berne and how much better it is in Geneva. They thought I was boasting or even suspected that I was paid by the Geneva tourism office. However I shortly found the hard data provided by "meteo suisse". And the data tell a very clear story. For the first 10 months of 2007, the average temperature was 15% higher in Geneva, whereas rainfall were 21% lower in Geneva. These patterns are similar when it comes to hours of sunshine (4% more in Geneva) and to rainy days (11% less in Geneva). Of course, some colleagues came up with all sorts of spacious arguments, such as having to measure temperatures on the Kelvin and not the Celcius scale.