Well, Jerusalem ain't so sunny right now. Heavy rains have also flooded the Modiin mall and the main highway in Tel Aviv. But- every cloud has a silver lining!- the Kinneret has risen about a half meter in the last 24 hours. This is good news.
And it turns out that there is no word for 'sleet' in Hebrew. 'Barad'- hail- well that's Biblical. Geshem, sheleg, ruach, seorah- like that old song- got all that covered. But what is this 'graupel' they keep going on about? No Israeli I asked could explain it. So I Wiki'd it, and it means 'soft hail or snow pellets'. So not exactly like sleet, which I experienced being blown into my face a couple weeks ago in NY; not the little needles, more like little pebbles being thrown into your face. Soft gravel. Graupel. It's a good word but I hope I never have to use it, or experience it, again.
It will snow later today and tomorrow and everyone's excited because basically it's Chofesh. The whole city shuts down. The buses stop, the schools shut, workers can't get to work. There is no infrastructure in place to deal with snow so cars skitter and skid across roads on an inch of it. It's comical to the Canadians and Russians, but serious stuff for the Jerusalemites! And whole families stay home and frolic in the 4 inches of snow, build snowmen and have snowball fights. Then I guess they go inside and drink Shoko Cham. So everyone loves snow here!
Provided there's no graupel. Then they still have to go to work.
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