Good evening, everyone.

November and December have been quite "normal" for the south of the Balkans
with very frequent rainfalls, tornadoes being reported in Crete, Syros and
Rhodes, temperatures down to -6C (so far) and snow making its appearance
down to low levels.
This picture, of the White Mountains in western Crete, shows the first
serious amounts of snow in the far south of Greece:
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8099/whiteus2.jpg (by Leandros Symeonidis
during a flight).

If any of the forecasting models are to be proved correct, more cold air is
on its way in a few days' time. The northern plains (and mountains) in
Greece are setting candidacy for locally significant snowfalls beginning
middle of next week. Actually there's naturally still some disagreement as
in whether it's central and southern or nothern Greece that will be affected
during the settlement of the cold plunge, but I believe I still stand a
chance to play with snow for the first time this winter when I go to Greece
next weekend. Actually, Athens itself woke up surrounded by mountains that
were white down to about 500m in the middle of last week; just a few minutes
drive from the city's suburbs.

In the meantime, Davis Vantage Pro2 stations are being put at locations with
a sparse network of weather stations thanks to a National Obvervatory of
Athens project. One of the latest ones was placed at the Vasilitsa ski
resort, at an altitude of 1830m amsl. One after the other, all of them are
being added to http://users.otenet.gr/~epigeo/en (table sortable by any
variable).

Motregen (drizzle) and regen (rain) at times in The Netherlands in the
meantime with temperatures currently between 3 and 8C around the country.

Yannis, De Bilt/NL