There was a total lunar eclipse last night, but the moon was almost eclipsed too much. The sky had been going from almost fully clear to almost fully overcast and back throughout the afternoon and early evening. No one knew for sure whether the moon would be visible during the eclipse, which would last from 10.30pm to 2.11 am, with the total phase occurring between 11.44pm and 0.58am.

We got a good start, with only a few scattered clouds at 10.30pm. The shadow of the Earth was clearly visible on the moon’s lower left, slowly creeping across the rest of the surface. I was out with my bike, camera and tripod, trying to get a few pictures in between the clouds, and meanwhile riding around looking for a good (dark) location to catch the total phase from. That brought me to parts of Leiden I’d never been before, including what I later discovered to be a bike racing track.

With some ten minutes to go before totality (where the moon is entirely in the Earth’s shadow), I set up my tripod on an empty parking lot just outside the city limits. The illuminated part of the moon continued to shrink and shrink and shrink… and then disappeared entirely.

Behind a pack of clouds.

At 11.42pm, two minutes before totality, a seemingly endless stretch of clouds came in from the west and obscured the moon. I felt robbed. Granted, a lunar eclipse is not nearly as spectacular as a solar eclipse, but I’d never seen one before (contrary to a solar eclipse; I saw the 1999 total eclipse in Belgium) and I was looking forward to seeing the moon turn a dark brownish red. Alas, no such luck. To make matters worse, it started raining and I had wondered off quite far from home. I was soaked to my underpants by the time I got back, but I wasn’t about to give up just yet.

The rain subsided a bit, so I changed into a dry jacket and a dry pair of shoes, and went out again. Before long it had stopped raining again and the clouds got a bit thinner. Eventually they broke altogether and I got a ten-minute window to behold the fully eclipsed, dark red moon. After that the clouds returned and it started raining again, but I didn’t care. I’d seen the eclipse.

The partially eclipsed moon at 11.04, 11.14 and 11.30pm (40, 30 and 14 minutes before totality) and the fully eclipsed moon at 0.39am (55 minutes into the 74-minute total phase). The poor quality is due to the limited capabilities of my camera.

Clouds came in again around 0.45am to make the rest of the eclipse invisible from Leiden.

Whatever those birds were doing yesterday, it wasn’t migrating. The sky was again filled with them as I got home today, so I grabbed my camera to get another few shots. I’m adding two in this post and I’ve put the rest in my photo gallery.

A man walking his dog noticed my interest in the birds and he was able to answer a few questions. The birds are starlings, which are very common in the Netherlands from spring to autumn, but shouldn’t be here this time of year. However, with the mild winter we’ve had, they never migrated south, and apparently that’s made them all restless. They spend most of the day in relative quiet, only to come out an hour or so before sunset to flutter and fly and swoop around like crazy. After sunset they all settle in a couple of trees to spend the night, and life repeats the next day. This has been going on for a few weeks now.

So, add starlings to the list of evidence that nature gets upset by global warming. A colleague already saw ducks mating last week, goats and sheep were born at the Amsterdam goat farm even earlier than that, and flowers are already beginning to bloom. I thought everything was early last year, but it’s even worse now.

Anyway, in addition to static pictures, I also shot a couple of video fragments of the starling swooping about. The video setting is not something I use a lot on my camera, but it seemed particularly well suited in this case. Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t let me put the video here directly, so you’ll have to click one of these links to watch:

• high quality video (640×480)
• medium quality video (480×360)
• low quality video (320×240)

Weather forecasts predicted a couple of hours of snowfall for today, as a large front was moving slowly across the Netherlands from south to north. An average amount of five to ten centimetres (2-4 inches) was expected, possibly going up to fifteen centimetres (half a foot) in some places. That was enough for the Dutch meteorological institute to issue a weather alarm, advising everyone to not travel unless really necessary, and to be extra careful when going outside.

The last time we had a fair amount of snow across a large part the country resulted in total chaos. Hundreds of people got stranded on the highway for hours, only able to complete their journey well after midnight. Others got stuck on railway stations or the airport and had to spend the night in emergency shelters. No one was going to let that happen again. People travelling by car today were advised to bring food, drinks, blankets, a flash light and a shovel, and to make sure their gas tank was filled and their cell phone charged. All traffic was urged to stick to the right lane, to keep at least that one clear of snow. Snow ploughs and de-icing trucks were ready to move in where necessary. Road authorities counted on much heavier traffic jams than normal during evening rush hour. The Dutch Railways were afraid switches would get stuck or trains would break down. Schools closed early to allow the students to make it home safely. Schiphol Airport ordered 750 field beds to be prepared for stranded passengers. Everyone was ready for the worst.

And then nothing much happened. Yes, it snowed. Yes, some roads became inaccessible. And yes, some flights had to be cancelled. But total chaos? No, not nearly. Here is a report of a day that was going to bring lots of snow and lots of havoc… and then didn’t. (Last update: 9am the day after.)

• The first snow reached the southern parts of the Netherlands around 9am and my town, Leiden, began turning white at 11. It was a bit colder than two days ago (when it was also snowing), so the snow didn’t melt on hitting the ground. Half an hour in, roof tops, trees, pavement and minor roads were already covered in a layer of white.
• The Dutch Railways (NS) implemented a modified train schedule by mid-morning. They basically cut a few trains, so they had room to deal with possible detours in case of frozen switches and to allow trains to run at lower speeds. Rover, an independent organization representing users of public transport, called the precautions premature, claiming that trains should be able to run normally with ten centimetres of snow. Rover always disagrees with the NS, and not always rightly so, but this time they had a point. As it turned out, train services were hardly affected by the weather. A grand total of one switch got stuck because its heating system broke down. That’s quite amazing, considering the Dutch railways are notorious for suffering delays for the smallest of reasons.
• Only two out of five runways were in operation at Schiphol Airport, causing delays and somce cancellations. A few hundred passengers have to spend the night with family or friends, in a hotel or at the airport, and try again tomorrow. The situation was worse in the UK, where several airports had to stall all incoming and outgoing traffic to clear the runways. The weekly Thursday colloquium at the Leiden Observatory was cancelled because the speaker, travelling from the UK, was stuck at a London airport.
• It stopped snowing in Leiden around 3pm. The four hours of near-continuous snowfall brought some three centimetres (an inch and a bit). Nice, but hardly special, and certainly no reason for a weather alarm. It was plenty for a snowball fight, which we engaged in vigorously with a couple of the undergrad and grad students. Two of us also built a snowman, who got decapacitated in the fight, but they quickly made him a new head.
• Evening rush hour moved forward to early afternoon, with many people trying to go home before the roads got too crowded. Interestingly, the actual evening rush hour was one of the quietest ever. At 5.30pm, the normal peak time, traffic was stuck across the country over a whopping 12 km (8 mi). On a normal Thursday, that’s around 200 km (125 mi) and road authorities had predicted jams totalling 350 km for today. Likewise, trains were no fuller than usual, even though there were fewer in operation.

Was the weather alarm really necessary? That’s hard to tell. It certainly lead to people staying at home all day or going home early. It’s likely that afternoon and evening traffic would have been busier if the alarm hadn’t been issued, but wide-spread chaos wouldn’t have occurred. There simply wasn’t as much snow as the meteorologists had predicted. Looking back, there was no cause for an official weather alarm. On the other hand, there was a good chance the weather would have been worse, making the alarm fully justified. It’s a tough question for the meteorologists: how certain do you have to be that the weather will be extreme enough for the alarm to be necessary? Weather will never be fully predictable, so we’ll always have false alarms. As long as they don’t occur too often, I’d say that’s acceptable.

What’s the matter today? Are the planets misaligned? Or is everyone overcome by yesterday’s few centimetres of snow? Whatever it is, it’s apparently resulting in accidents and near misses.

I almost got hit by a bus while cycling to the university this morning. I had right of way, but the bus driver didn’t see me in time so he just turned onto the road. We missed each other by less than a metre.

Someone else (probably a pedestrian) most likely did get hit by a bus. At least, there was a bus pulled over on the side of the road, with a police car and an ambulance behind it. There’s really only one reason for those three to be standing there like that. I didn’t see a victim, so either they were hidden from my view by the bus, or their injuries were light enough that they had already left under their own power.

An office mate of mine got hit by a car, but so far it looks like she only sustained a bruised arm. The laptop she was carrying in her backpack is still in one piece. The guilty driver shall probably remain unknown, since they drove right on and my friend couldn’t see their license plate. That’s a criminal offence: hit and run.

So, that’s three of these incidents in a short timespan. No more, okay?

Life is pretty much back to normal following yesterday’s storm havoc, but I had expected nothing else. We’ve had worse storms, like the January 25th, 1990 hurricane (up to 12 Beaufort) or the February 1st, 1953 North Sea flood, which killed 1835 and left tens of thousands homeless. Yesterday pales in comparison to such disasters as 2005′s Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 Boxing day earthquakes and tsunamis. Nevertheless, we haven’t had a natural event with this many fatalities, personal injuries and structural damage since the 1990 hurricane, so the January 18th, 2007 storm will definitely go into history as a notable one.

Like yesterday, I will compile a list of things I’d like to remember (last updated at 11.30pm):

• The storm claimed seven lives in the Netherlands: Two people were killed on the N224 road near Ede when a tree fell onto the car. A motorist was killed in Leersum after a tree fell down right in front of him and a 17-years-old guy died in similar fashion in Sint-Oedenrode. The fifth fatality occurred in Riel, where a kid was blown against a car. The other two deaths were only indirectly due to the wind. One man crashed into a truck on a highway, probably because he was too late in noticing traffic had come to a stop. Another men fell through a roof while trying to repair storm damage. Other countries also suffered fatalities: at least twelve people died in the UK, seven in Germany, three in the Czech Republic and two each in Belgium and France.
• Train services remained suspended for the remainder of last night. Repairs were conducted overnight and the first trains started rolling again around 5.30am, but it took until 3pm before all services were back on schedule. Five to six thousand people got stranded at railway stations and airports, where the Red Cross provided field beds, blankets and food and drinks. Apart from there being not enough beds in Utrecht, this all went very well.
• The last traffic jam finally dissolved around 2.30am, many hours later than normal. Most unfortunate were the people on a highway near Rhenen, who got stuck on the road for six hours.
• Structural damage is estimated at at least € 200 million ($ 260 million). That is twice as much as what was caused by the last big storm (October 27th, 2002), but only a third of the January 25th, 1990 hurricane.
• The coal ship that got into trouble in the Western Scheldt was saved after all. Several other ships, including the world’s largest container vessel, the Emma Mærsk, had to be supported by tugboats. The amount of oil leaked into the Rotterdam harbour seems to be less than the 1.5 million litres originally reported. Also, it didn’t cause much of an environmental disaster as the wind contained it to one part of the harbour.
• Collection of mail and transportation to sorting centres was severely hindered yesterday, delaying delivery of a few hundred thousand cards, letters and parcels. Some 17 million pieces of mail are normally handled each day, so it’s actually only a few percent that will arrive a day later than usual.
• Forests suffered only limited damage. The storm mostly uprooted trees in parks and gardens and along roads, because they are less deeply rooted. One exception was the Kuinder Forest near Emmeloord, where 1200 pine trees went down.
• Sixty seals in Pieterburen had to be relocated last night. The seal asylum was more crowded than usual, so two tents had been set up to house the extra animals. When part of one of the tents collapsed, the seals were moved over to the asylum director’s office, the asylum’s visitors area, and an adjoining cinema.

The Netherlands got hit today by the strongest storm in over four years, going up to 10 on the Beaufort scale, with sustained wind speeds of up to 100 kph (62 mph) and gusts of up to 130 kph (75 mph). All across the country, branches fell off trees or entire trees were uprooted, roof tiles and wall plates came down, trucks rolled over, and so on. Numerous roads were closed for all traffic because they were too dangerous to drive on or had become inaccessible. In Utrecht, our fourth biggest city, a construction crane fell on top of a university building, injuring at least six people. That accident carried a personal touch, since my sister was in the next building and saw it happen. She even would have had classes in that building later today. Fortunately, she escaped harm.

Overhead view of the construction crane accident at the Utrecht university campus. (Source: Volkskrant)

The crane hit a couple of class rooms, which thankfully were not in use at the time. In fact, classes had been relocated just because of the construction works. (Source: Volkskrant)

As for myself, I experienced the storm four times. At around 8.15am, when I went to work, it was raining very heavily, together with an already strong breeze. Since I never wear a raincoat, I was completely soaked after the 4-km, 15-minute ride to the university. Some two hours later, I went back downtown to the Old Observatory with a colleague of mine to give a talk and a tour to first-year highschool students. The rain had subsided by then, but the wind had increased to gale force. We had tailwinds for most of the way, so apart from the occasional gust from the side (nearly blowing us into a canal), the ride was not too bad.

On the way back, around 2pm, the wind had gotten even stronger and we now had to go pretty much straight into it. The biggest challenge was a 40-metre tunnel underneath the railway tracks near the station. This tunnel is almost perfectly aligned with the wind direction and the buildings at the other end create a funnel effect, compressing the wind as it is forced inside. I’ll tell you, it’s not easy to get through that cycling, but being tough Dutch guys used to riding a bike under any circumstances, we managed.

The worst part of the storm hit Leiden when I was back inside the university, peaking at 10 Bft. around 4pm. An hour later the wind had subsided a bit and the sky was mostly clear, so I took the opportunity to go home in relative quiet. That turned out to be a good idea, as the rain returned later and also the wind seemed to pick up a bit again.

The image on the right (source: Volkskrant) shows the conditions at 2pm, still some six or seven hours before the storm’s worst point. The numbers are the strongest wind gust (in kph) measured at each location, while the colour coding gives the overall force of the storm on the Beaufort scale. A 6 Bft. wind is considered a strong breeze, 8 Bft. a gale and 10 Bft. a full storm. I live near the first 1 of the 119 gust, awfully close to the 10 Bft. area. However, as the storm got more intense, Leiden definitely went up to 10 Bft. The wind gusts also got stronger, going over 120 kph near Leiden and up to a maximum of 133 kph in southwestern province of Zeeland.

Of course, there are many notable events on a day like this. I’m just going to compile a list, mostly for myself to look back upon in the future. Here goes (last updated at 11pm):

• The Dutch road authorities (Rijkswaterstaat) called a nationwide traffic alarm, urging everyone to stay inside unless it was absolutely necessary to go somewhere. I only heard of the alarm after I got back from the Old Observatory, so I had to go out one more time. The government and other authorities also strongly advised everyone to stay indoors.
• The right lanes in both directions of the A2 highway near Oog in Al were flooded by the heavy morning rain and were subsequently closed off. This resulted in a traffic jam of some 30 kilometres (20 mi) in the northbound direction.
• Two people were killed on the N224 road near Ede when a tree fell onto the car. A motorist was killed in Leersum after a tree fell down right in front of him and a 17-years-old guy died in similar fashion in Sint-Oedenrode. A fifth fatality occurred in Riel, where a kid was blown against a car. A bus was blown off a dyke near Tholen and hit a tree, injuring six of the passengers. By 6pm, 157 traffic accidents had been reported, including seven with personal injuries. Thirty trucks had rolled over by then.
• Two lanes were closed off on the A9 highway between Alkmaar and Amstelveen because a truck rolled over. The N11 highway between Leiden and Bodegraven was closed off for the same reason. The A27 highway between Almere and Stichtse Brug was closed off because a portakabin blew off a truck. Another part of the A27, near Everdingen, was partly closed off because a trailer rolled over. The A12 highway between Utrecht and Oberhausen, Germany, was closed off because a truck jackknifed. The N36 road between Almelo and Harderberg was closed off because of another truck accident. Yet more truck accidents caused the Moerdijk Bridge on the A16 highway and the Haringvliet Bridge on the A29 highway to be closed, effectively cutting off traffic into and out of Rotterdam on the south. Dozens of other roads were closed off because of similar accidents, as well as fallen branches and uprooted trees. As the evening set in, it seemed like half our roads were inaccessible and the other half were filled with traffic jams. It was worst between 5 and 5.30pm, with traffic stuck over a total length of 430 km (267 mi). Normal evening rush hour has traffic jammed over 100-150 km (60-90 mi).
• The Markerwaarddijk between Lelystad and Enkhuizen, a dyke running straight through the IJsselmeer, our largest lake, was closed off for all traffic because of the dangerous conditions. Similarly, the road across the Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier) was closed off. The storm barrier itself was left open, because the low tide and the wind direction did not cause a serious flooding risk. Water levels in the province of Friesland got up to 3.30 metres above normal, which is 10 cm above the alarm level. The dykes are being watched closely and the local water boards are standing by in case problems occur.
• A screen next to the A2 highway near Abcoude was at risk of being blown apart, so the police moved a number of trucks onto the emergency lane to shield it from the wind. It didn’t help, so the A2 was closed off entirely between Abcoude and Vinkeveen for fear of the screen coming loose and hitting traffic. With this being one of our busiest stretches of road, it added strongly to today’s traffic havoc.
• The glass façade of a bank office at the Belgiëeplein in Amsterdam got blown out; no one was injured. The post office in downtown Utrecht and several surrounding streets were closed off because roof tiles were falling down. Almere’s city hall was evacuated following the collapse of part of the façade. Aluminum plates were torn off the Amsterdam offices of the SBS media corporation. Amsterdam’s central railway station was partly evacuated after part of the glass roof collapsed; Delft’s railway station was closed off entirely. The windows in an office in Zoetermeer were shattered by the heavy winds. Shopping malls in Rotterdam, Zwijndrecht and other cities were evacuated because parts of the roof came off. One of the blades of a wind turbine near Lelystad was ripped off. And that’s only part of the structural damage…
• The ferry services to the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling were suspended all day. Train and bus services became more and more limited as the day progressed and all train services were suspended around 7pm. (The last time all train services were suspended was in January of 1990, when an even worse storm hit.) It is unlikely any trains will run at all for the rest of the night, so passengers are urged to find a place to stay with friends or family. Emergency shelters are being set up in those areas where many people are stranded. Services are not expected to be back to normal before noon tomorrow. The saddest thing I saw on the news was an elderly couple stuck at Amsterdam Central Station on their way back from the hospital one of them had just been discharged from. I hope the Red Cross provided them with some more comfort than a simple field stretcher.
• Schiphol Airport was operating only one of the five runways, causing delays and flight cancellations, stranding even more people.
• Several bridges had to be kept closed, for fear of the wind blowing them over once opened.
• The Artis zoo in Amsterdam was closed for visitors around 11am. All animals were kept inside for the rest of the day.
• Many schools closed earlier than usual to give everyone a chance to get home before the storm got worse than it already was.
• A container ship got away from its dock in the Rotterdam harbour and rammed a nearby crude oil depot, causing 1.6 million litres of oil to spill into the water. A coal ship got into trouble in the Western Scheldt and will probably not survive.
• Many afternoon newspapers could not be delivered to subscription customers. Pizza deliveries were largely suspended. Many shops normally open on Thursday evenings closed already at the end of the afternoon. Driving exams were mostly cancelled, as were theatre shows.

I gathered some pictures from the Volkskrant newspaper into my photo gallery for a visual impression of what hit us.

Finally, let’s end on a lighter note. Today was the Dutch premiere for the Belgian movie Windkracht 10, loosely translated as Heavy Storm. They couldn’t have picked a better day!

The lovely weather today made me feel like going for a bike ride, so that’s exactly what I did. It was quite cold (around 9 °C or 48 °F), but once I was underway, that didn’t really bother me. There was a decent bit of wind (though not nearly the storm from a few days ago), so I planned my ride for headwinds the first part and tailwinds the last part.

Starting from the B, I headed west out of the city and rode around part of the Valkenburgsemeer (Valkenburg Lake). From there I zigzagged to the small village of Rijksdorp, just north from the town of Wassenaar, which is one of the Netherlands’ most wealthy places. I carried on westwards into the dunes and turned right just before I got to the beach, following a truely wonderful bike trail through the dunes to the beach town of Katwijk. After a brief stop at the Katwijk beach, I made my way back to Leiden, with a detour past the Old Observatory. The entire ride was 32.7 km (20.3 mi) long; that’s my longest tour since last July’s Flower Bulb Route, and the longest ride I’ve ever done in any winter. I guess that’s the advantage of the current one being a few degrees warmer than normal.

The dunes northwest of Rijksdorp, with the beach and the North Sea behind me. The dunes extend about two kilometers from the beach.

The bike trail as it winds its way through the dunes. I followed the trail for about ten kilometers (six miles), but it runs for at least another ten in the other direction. There’s hardly a flat or straight part anywhere, making for a fun ride–especially with the strong tailwind I had today.

Sunset at the Katwijk beach at around half past four. The structures just visible on the left part of the horizon are probably part of the Rotterdam harbour, over thirty kilometers (19 miles) away. This harbour is the largest in Europe and was the largest in the world until 2004.

For some more pictures, check out the Dune Route album in my photo galleries.

Sorry, Dutch only this time.

Weather forecast on the radio this morning: “The day starts out sunny, but clouds will come in during the afternoon.”

Weather forecast on tv this morning: “The day begins with clouds, but the sun will break through in the afternoon.”

The weather forecasts for today were pretty horrendous: heavy winds, lots of rain, even some hail and a thunderstorm or two. Nothing quite that bad passed through my place, but it was pouring down steadily for the better part of the afternoon. Maybe it should do so more often, because we won today’s baseball game by a big margin: 12-1.

First, though, I was plate umpire in the game of my club’s second adult team, which turned into one of the more eventful games I’ve umpired this year. Let me mention a few things that happened…

• Pick-off attempt at first base by the home team. Runner tried to get back with a head-first dive, but came up a good ten centimeters short. The base umpire (standing near second at that moment) couldn’t see this, so he ruled save. We got together and he changed the call to out. Visitors not happy.
• Hard grounder down the third-base line, jumping just over the bag for a fair ball. At least, that’s what I judged. Visitors, playing defense at that moment, disagreed.
• My strike zone probably was a bit too low, but it was consistently so throughout the game, so both teams had the same (dis)advantages. Home team pitcher visibly disagreed with some of my calls. After another ball call on a high pitch, he had enough of it and changed places with the center fielder. I hope he doesn’t take things personally, because I have to umpire a couple more of his games this year.
• And finally, a fine example of a coach/manager not quite knowing the rules. No outs, runners on first (R1) and second (R2). The ball is grounded to the third baseman, who throws to first to retire the batter. R1 advanced to second, where R2 (who should have gone to third) is still standing. R2 takes off for third after all and the first baseman throws the ball back to his third baseman, who tags the bag. R2, meanwhile, kind of strolls to third and steps on the base before the third baseman finally tags him. The defense claimed the tag of the base should have sufficed for the out, because the force was still in effect. Sorry, guys. The force was removed when the batter was retired, so R2 really had to be tagged. (There was some question as to whether R2 was tagged before or after he touched the base, but I thought it was after, and that’s what counts.)

The visitors ended up winning 11-10, despite what they perceived as a few calls being made deliberately in the home team’s favour. It’s too bad both teams spent so much of their energy on arguing with the umpires instead of playing ball. Okay, so maybe the base umpire and I made a wrong call once or twice. That happens; we’re as fallable as any other human. The thing is, both teams certainly made more than two errors on offense and on defense. That’s why the home team lost and the visitors only won by one run.

Anyway, back to my own game. After losing the road game 9-8 back in April, we dominated today’s home game for a 12-1 victory. Our defense was flawless except for an error in the last inning, which led to the only run against. There were some magnificent plays, including a beautiful sliding catch from our first baseman and an excellent sliding grab behind second base from our short stop, with plenty of time to get the batter at first. Our pitcher had good control, giving up only a few hits, one walk and one hit-by-pitch. We also did great offensively. We did have more strike-outs than usual, but we also had more hits. The highlight was a series of back-to-back-to-back triples.

My personal highlight was a simple single, finally getting me my first basehit of the season. Other than that, I had a pair of strike-outs and a walk, the latter followed by a steal of second and the scoring of a run on an error on the next hitter’s ground ball. Defensively, I didn’t have a lot to do. I played right field in the first inning and left field for the rest of the game. Only one ball came my way: a fly ball in right field for an easy catch. I was ready to pitch in relief, but our starting pitcher could finish the game on his own.

All in all, then, it was a nice day, even with the bad weather.