Language/weather: Skerries, tombolo; hail, snow

Skerry/skerries. Tombolo. These * are * the English words! Do you know what they are? I didn´t.



Skjær, skjer;  ayre. Were the Norwegian word I´d not known. When looking it up, finding the English definition of skerries, skerry; tombolo did not help. So I looked that up.

Skjær/ skjer, or skerry in English,  is a tiny island too small to live on. Sometimes they form in shallow water, or sometimes extremely deep water, usually around the edge of larger islands or continents. When sjkær get the right wave conditions, a build up of debris, such as rocks and finer sands, build up to form a narrow path of beachy land connecting either a skjær to another or to the mainland. This is called ayre, or in English tombolo.


Where I live, on the coastal area of Norway, we have many of these skjær. One must have a boat to get to them. They form our archipelago, or atleast that it what I call it as that is what I think it looks like when flying above on the edge of Norway along the coast. Very pretty! The one time the weather and location was perfect for photos, I of course had packed my camera in my checked luggage!:( so you´ll have to google photos of skjær,  ayre also. I wonder if that is how some of the random lakes within the islands have also formed? The various articles I found, all mentioned also how often these skjær can rise up out of the water, even apparently as I type there are skerries around the world rising. Which I find very interesting! It makes me wonder if Venice could somehow use this earthly phenomenom to its advantage to rise out of the sea...Wishful thinking. Currently, Norway is having a huge problem with surplus stone being dug out of the the mountains when building new tunnels, and wondering what to do with it. The skerry info of tiny islands being able to rise, reading recently about Venice, and the stone issue here....was just thinking out loud,). One places problem is maybe another places solution. I also find it fascinating the history of the architecture and creation of Venice (currently one of the books I am trying to find time to read is a history of Venice).

I live across from a flat piece of land with suddenly rises to a tall mountain. I´ve been told the glaciers formed it when they came through here long ago. It is another thing when time I want to research. It´s a very beautiful majestic rounded mountain, a bit more like the low mountains in New Mexico, rather than some of the extremely tall jagged mountains of Colorado. It´s good for rock climbing, or there are footpaths along the edge that slowly narrowly wind up eventually to the top. On the other side, the mountain is about the height of the land on that side, so it is dotted with residences, with roads that have some of the usual bus routes. Many wonderful wooded mountain walking paths and hikes through out. Most of the mountain view I get is low scrubby random heathers, junipers dotted along the stone mountain. Lower down a thin narrow forest of various conifers and deciduous trees, birch and other still green with leaves.

Currently, a brisk strong wind is blowing a storm this way. Hail. The other night we got our first snow (not here exactly, but on the highest mountains). Ski season will soon begin:)