Posts Tagged With: Weather

A new Dutch reading board (Or: This one is a bit tastier)

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Niki

At some point last month Marco and I were at a store and spotted a different type of reading board. Dutch reading boards have been used for over a century to teach kids how to read. It shows all of the commonly used consonants, vowels and diphthongs in the Dutch language, with words and pictures like aap, noot or mies (ape, nut, word for a woman or kat). See also the photos at this Dutch Wikipedia page. You can also read more about the history of Dutch reading boards (link in English).

Or you can just admire the reading board that Marco and I spotted that is crafted especially for men, apparently:

Leesplank voor kerels = reading board for men.

And here is a random link of the day: in 51 places in The Hague you can take an umbrella / leave an umbrella for free (article in Dutch at denhaag.nl).

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Beautiful blue canals (Or: Another view of The Hague)

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Niki

Last week I took a walk to the old Red Cross hospital in Segbroek, a neighborhood in The Hague. It was time to get another corona vaccination. It was a route I hadn’t taken before, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful view of one of the canals:

I love photographing trees dipping into the water. And the blue, slightly cloudy sky was also nice to photograph.

In other news:

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Anyone ready for a heat wave? (Or: Issues with Buienradar)

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Niki

Buienradar.nl is a well-known Dutch website for weather. Buien = showers/rainfall.

A few days ago they had this as a 14 day prediction for The Hague:

In other words, late next week the temperature would go from about 66F to 95F. That sounds nice! But no, it was just an unfortunate bug in the data which has since been fixed. Actually the temperatures will be dropping from 17C to 13C (62F to 55F). It is probably for the best that it isn’t 95F in late October…

See also: Buienradar: in deel Zuid-Holland volgende week 36 graden from omroepwest.nl.

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Rain, rain, rain! (With: A bit of thunder mixed in for good measure)

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Niki

Except for a brief spell one afternoon, I don’t think it has rained in The Hague for at least a month and a half. Perhaps that figure isn’t 100% correct, but you get the idea. Over the weekend I was running errands and I was disturbed to realize the pavement stones were so sticky in some spots that my shoes were getting sucked in. Ew.

But finally, tonight, the pavement gets a good cleaning:

Bring on the rain! And thunder too. There is never enough thunder and lightning in this country.

This website is buienradar.nl. It isn’t always the most predictable of websites – or perhaps I shouldn’t put some much faith into it – but it is useful enough. More water for the plants and trees!

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Trams in The Hague (Or: Colors and tunnels)

Posted on August 10, 2022 by Niki

Here are two tram-related photos for you. First, a white Avenio tram:

Avenio is the newest type of tram available in The Hague. The big plus for this type of tram is that the there are no stairs to enter it – the door is at the same height as the platform. This is of course useful for people in wheelchairs, people with strollers, etc. Until this year the tram was black and red (see Dutch Wikipedia) but the white/red combination stands out more and is better for traffic safety. Each tram is being repainted as it comes in for a scheduled repair job, so it will take about a year for the black/red tram to disappear from The Hague’s streets.

This is a photo of the entrance to the tram tunnel which services the underground Grote Markt stop and the Spui stop. Trams coming in this direction are headed towards The Hague Central train station and trams going away from this direction are headed above ground, towards the Brouwersgracht stop.

While there isn’t a tram pictured, I thought the plants were nice to photograph. Perhaps I should take another photo in a few weeks to see if the trees still look green. About half of Europe is experiencing drought conditions at the moment. I hate to say it but we could use a bit of rain. Here is a map from the European Drought Observatory.

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Summer heat (Or: The Netherlands begins to sizzle)

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Niki

Not wanting to be left out of the heat wave that has been occurring across southern Europe for more than a week, The Netherlands joined the fun yesterday and today, with temperatures here in The Hague around 31C/87F yesterday and temperatures today around 37C/99F. Technically that is nothing compared to what the rest of Europe has been going through, or what other parts of the world have been going through, but still.

I went to work this morning as usual (climate controlled office for the win), and it wasn’t too bad at that point. But on the way back…oh my. I felt like I had been smashed against a wall of heat, as if someone had thrown a heavy blanket around all of my being. Still, as long as you find the shade where you can it works out.

Speaking of finding shade…

As you can see, a lot of people went to the beach in Scheveningen. A smart choice, but if you’re smart you either need to bring an umbrella… or you find a spot directly under the pier for shade. Although then you have to wonder what is the point of going to the beach just to sit under the pier, but to each their own.

Luckily the temperatures will drop again tomorrow, so it really was a mini heat wave. Check out some other photos of Scheveningen over at indebuurt.nl (in Dutch, but scroll down for the photos).

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Anyone up for some Sinterklaas sweets? (Or: Albert Heijn offerings)

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Niki

One of the local Albert Heijns has an entire wall display for Sinterklaas sweets:

Think of things like speculaas with almond filling (cakieshq.com), spiced kruidnoten cookies (thespruceeats.com) and the softer pepernoten cookies (allrecipes.com).

Autumn arrived at the end of September, bringing a lot of rain and cold with it. If you are not paying attention, you will get caught in a sudden downpour that soaks you and then dissipates within 10 minutes. Marco and I also still need to try the yearly traditional of oliebollen, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. Soon!

At least the weather looks a bit drier this week, even if the warmth of summer is gone.

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Upcoming clouds (Or: Plein 1813)

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Niki

Here is a photo of the Plein 1813 monument just outside of The Hague’s city centre. If you take tram 1 to the Scheveningen beach you will ride past it, as the tram lines pass by on either side.

The slightly darkening clouds are a bit of a warning for the weather this week, although this photo is from a few weeks ago. It rained and thundered so long yesterday that I delayed my near-daily trip to the grocery store until after work. There was one moment of thunder – hitting right as I stood by a slightly ajar kitchen window – that made me jump. In a good way. Today it poured while Marco and I were making dinner, and it provided a lovely backdrop of noise. But there is more rain than not this week, with cooler temperatures hanging on for a while. It’s a bit crazy to realize when parts of the US are experiencing temperatures closer to 36C (100F). We are lucky if we hit 20C (68F).

In other news, all from the English site dutchnews.nl this time:

Panamanian ship carries massive dead whale to port of Terneuzen. The sperm whale was so large the ship didn’t even notice until they pulled into port. Yikes.

Dyke breach in Zuid Holland, was it cows or crayfish? American crayfish are definitely turning into a huge pest in the Netherlands. With no natural predators, their population is growing quickly.

Two more Dutch sites added to Unesco cultural heritage list. The Hollands Waterlinie defence lines were also recently added to the list.

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Another world (Or: Flash flooding in southeast Netherlands)

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Niki

It has been quite rainy in the Netherlands this week. Today was no different – highs were around 16C/60F with showers off and on the whole day. And nearby Scheveningen was host to one of the most dangerous forms of lightning strikes this past Saturday (article from nltimes.nl). It was indeed rather loud.

Last night there was a storm hanging over Germany, the southeast part of the Netherlands and Belgium. And it decided to just sit there for hours, pouring down rain. See this tweet:

And another tweet can be found here.

In other news:

[Dutch] Broadcaster apologizes for Nazi subtitle reference during Euro’s Germany anthem from nltimes.nl. Opps?

Video of 15 year old driving Limburg train under investigation from nltimes.nl. I want to say “Opps?” here too, except that this one was actually deliberate…

Click here if you want to see what an exploded work/service bus looks like (regio15.nl). The police are working on the theory that it was due to a gas canister inside the bus exploding. The driver was seriously injured (rumor is he was getting into the vehicle when it happened) and 20 houses have exploded windows, but it could have been worse.

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Lazy Saturdays (Or: Dreary walks in rain)

Posted on May 15, 2021 by Niki

As the blog title implies, we’re in a bit of a wet spell at the moment. Which is actually a good thing – for the first time since 2018, no part of the Netherlands is experiencing drought conditions. See this article in Dutch at nos.nl: Regen en lage temperaturen maken eind aan droogte or see this “Drought monitor” chart at KNMI in Dutch. The chart does still show we have to be careful, though. The black line at the bottom left is this year, and it is similar to 2018 (the grey line) which had a wet spring that turned into an extremely dry summer, rivaled only by the record year 1976 (red).

Another cause for optimism – hospital intakes and the number of corona cases continue to fall, with numbers not seen since mid March. Hopefully the planned relaxations for step 2 of the “opening plan” can go ahead next week (government.nl in English). Of course, it is always a balancing act since relaxations will lead to more infections, so hopefully the number of vaccinations administered will help with that. We are currently doing about a million a week.

In other news: First night train from Amsterdam to Vienna departs on May 25 from nltimes.nl. It is a sleeper train; the route takes 14 hours (19:30 departure from Amsterdam, 09:19 arrival in Vienna).

Den Haag zet zich schrap voor renovatie Binnenhof: ‘Het gebied moet interessant blijven’ from omroepwest.nl. After this summer the Binnenhof will close for 5 and a half years for a large renovation. I will miss being able to walk through it. The article talks about a few activities the city will organize to help keep the area interesting for tourists, including a lookout point that will allow people to see the construction from above.

It also talks about guided tours and a focus on archaeology. My favorite archaeology-after-construction area is the artifacts found during the construction of the tram tunnel. They left some in the floor under glass for commuters to view whenever they wanted.

“Around the table” artifacts at the Grote Markt tram stop, dated to the 17th century. Here’s hoping the Binnenhof construction reveals similar finds.

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