Springtime!

At 00.07 CET last night the sun could be observed to be directly above the earth's equator. In astronomy this is called an equinox, it marks the beginning of astronomically spring on the Northern hemisphere. And that was just about time. Let's forget the winter we didn't have. With 6.5 degrees Celsius average it was the warmest winter ever measured in the Netherlands. A warm and also very wet and gloomy winter; lots of clouded days and hardly any sunshine (157 hours against 172 hours on an average Dutch Winter). It was so dark the battery power indicator of my solar powered watch turned on low level last month. That never happened before...

Meteorological spring starts 1 March. It made a good start with some really pleasant sunny days, soon the watch was back on high power-level again. The picture above was taken last Friday: the falling barometric pressure graphic predicted the deteriorating weather period we are in now. It's a little miracle this "watch": timekeeping, compass, barometer, thermometer, altimeter, world time, countdown timer, stopwatch, alarm... It all works with great accuracy. A nice toy, but to be honest: nowadays the added value of the private weather forecast based on local changes in air pressure is limited, since you have (even on a multiple day seakayak-tour) continuously access to professional wind- and weather-forecasts by Radio, GSM, VHF and internet...

It's not in the manual, but I discovered an other great feature of the watch: the power-indicator functions as a personal "Seasonal Affective Disorder Depression (SAD)-indicator", when it turns low it's time to get out that dull and dark office and to go out kayaking, to prevent the winter-depression... Pfff, hope real spring comes soon ;-)