Well, it is raining, but it is not pouring. Today is a gloomy and cold day. Highs are forecast to be in the upper 40s and the gentle rain keeps on coming down. Fortunately, there is no wind to make it bone-chilling. I also learned today that the cold weather we have been having so far is unusual. I asked the person I talked with if cold autumns lead to hard winters, but she said she had not thought about that before and couldn't tell me. So I guess we will have to see. But I did get confirmation that even when they have had 4 feet of snow in the past (yes, I said 4 feet), they don't cancel school or work. So I guess we need to get some snow boots!
Kempten is in a valley below the German and Austrian Alps. Because of that, it can be quite rainy here much of the year. As the weather moves down, the moisture is squeezed out of the clouds as the clouds are pushed up against the mountains. The average rainfall here is 950 mm to 1500 mm depending on how close you are to the mountains. Can you convert that into inches? (For those of you who are metrically challenged, see answer below.) On average, each month has between 9 to 15 days that are cloudy. I'm told that certain late winter months can go the entire month without a sunny day, but that may be their "clouded" judgement. We are planning to start charting the weather in October. Perhaps you can also chart the weather for your class. Think about what items you would want to put on your chart.
Of course one of the things that is weather dependent is hiking in this beautiful countryside. This leads me to the question of the day for yesterday: Does Germany have National Parks? Yes, it does. Germany has 14 national parks and 14 biosphere reserves (this is kinda like our Wildlife Refuges, but on an international level with strict rules.) There are two in Bavaria, the Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald, established in 1970 as the first national park in Germany and the Nationalpark Berchtesgaden, established in 1978. This area has many significant ties to history during World War II. When you study this time period in US History or in World History, remember to check out why this region was important during that war. Today, there is an excellent museum chronicalling the entire War War II era. This area is also very near where those famous mountains from "The Sound of Music" are, giving you an idea of what it looks like there. We have trips planned to both areas. I can't wait to show you the pictures once we get to go.
So, for today's question of the day: "Which zoo has the largest number of species in the world?"
Today's word(s) for the day are to match the weather outside: Rain, Wind and Clouds - der Regen (pronounced Ray-gehn where the g is a hard g), der Wind (pronounced Vind), and die Wolken (pronounced Vohlken).
For the metrically challenged, when I did the math, it worked out to 36.8 to 59 inches of rain per year! Remember that when it is snowing, it takes about 10 inches of snow to equal 1 inch of water.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
