Winter in Israel
This post was prompted by a comment from someone who lives in the islands on the North of Scotland. He seemed to think that talking about cold in Israel was somewhat ridiculous. Well, here’s some information to clarify my claim.
Today we are having rains and wind in Israel while most of Scotland is fairly clear. The high temperature in Stornoway was predicted to be 4 degrees Celsius. Where I live, in Elazar in the Judean Mountains, our high will be 3 degrees.
The truth is that despite being as small as Israel is, you can find large differences in almost everything, including the weather. The South hast vast stretches of real desert and normally warm temperatures. The coastal plain which includes Tel Aviv is usually blessed with a moderate Mediterranean climate. And in the North-East we have Mount Hermon where it is snowing at the moment. There is a ski slope there that will probably open after this storm passes.
Our house is about 920 meters above sea level. That’s not very high compared to Europe, but it definitely makes our weather a lot colder than the coastal plain. In the winter, the lower cloud level comes in at about 900 meters. That’s just about 3000 feet for you North Americans. We find ourselves driving though fog in the winter. But it is actually the low level clouds. Jerusalem is about 11 mils (18 km) north of us, and a good 200 meters lower.
The year we moved here from Haifa, 1978, we came just in time for a major snowstorm that left us snowed in, and without electricity. The army delivered bread and milk to us using tracked armored vehicles. Normally we see snow about once a year, and it melts within a day or two. About every 3-4 years we get a more serious snowfall. When that happens we may have bits of snow that survive on the shaded sides of the hills for a week or more.
I just wanted to let you all know that even with regard to the weather, Israel is a place with lots of variations. It always has been. I’ll conclude with a short excerpt from psalm cxlvii.
“He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth hoar frost like ashes.
He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Who can stand before his cold?
He sendeth out his word and melteth them.”
Wetherhorn 