White Easter

We didn’t get a white Christmas this winter, but we got a white Easter. If my memory is to be trusted, that’s the first Easter snow I’ve ever seen. (There was some snow in the night before Easter in 2001, but it melted away so fast that I never saw it.) It was also the coldest Easter in 44 years, with temperatures hardly getting above 5 °C (41 °F). Of course, winter weather in March is not really a peculiarity, even in the Netherlands. It’s the very early Easter (March 23rd, only one day later than the absolute earliest possibility) that made for this rare occurrence.

After sunny weather for the first half of last week, the weather turned around on Thursday. It rained for most of the day and a northerly wind brought in cooler air. The showers continued on Friday, with some wet snow and hail mixed in with the rain. Temperatures continued to drop throughout the weekend and Leiden got the first real snow on Saturday evening. More snow fell throughout the night to start off Easter Sunday with a modest layer of one, maybe two inches of white. It was above freezing during the day, so the snow was gone by noon. The evening and the night brought another round of snow showers, so Easter Monday looked pretty much the same as Sunday.

Last night, from Monday to Tuesday, was again cold and had a mix of rain, hail and snow showers. Authorities did what they could in salting the roads, but it wasn’t enough. Chaos ensued during the morning rush hour, with cars and trucks slipping on snow- or ice-covered roads. One truck broke through a guard rail on a bridge near Den Bosch and nearly slid into the Meuse river. There were traffic jams for a total length of 888 km (552 mi) at the worst moment, and that’s in a country only twice the size of New Jersey. Dutch rush hour traffic has been worse only once before: heavy snow caused 975 km (606 mi) of queues on February 8, 1999.

On days like this, it’s a good thing I always go to work by bike.