So winter never came to Bulgaria this winter… and now it’s almost gone.

No, the photo above is not mine, and it is not from some park in the city I live in… It’s just a thumbnail of a very nice winter paysage by Joshua Bryant (click thumbnail to see in its original size on Joshua’s flickr account). I almost envy him that he had had such a winter – snow and all…

I look now outside of the window. Everything is bathed in sunlight, it is almost 20 degrees Celsius outside, no snow, no wind, and the trees will start to blossom soon, I guess. Lots of days in January, February, even in December, were like this one. I’m a cyclist and the whole winter I was able to ride without problems, without freezing, without the usual battle with snow and ice on the roads… So I should be happy. Or should I?…

It is strange, not natural, somehow. Usually, during winter in Sofia, there are lots of cold days, with snow, fog, freezing wind, temperatures dropping way below zero degrees C… and now?

In Sofia I didn’t see snow even once this winter. Even once! Or it rained, or it was too warm, or just slighly cold, but no snow at all. Climate is changing, and the change can be felt in the air, in the water, in the wind… everywhere.

The only time when I actually saw and felt snow on my face this winter was when we went to Vitosha mountain, to the Kominite peak, in January, and one more time when we conquered Cherni Vryh peak (some write it Cherni Vrah; it’s 2290 m above sea level, so it’s not surprising that there was snow there at the time;-) – on the latter adventure I do not have a blog entry, though (at least, for now)…

…But you can see how the warning bell at the Cherni Vryh peak looked on January 20th, Saturday, when in Sofia the weather was again much like now – sunny:-)

I really missed the snow this winter.

Is it global warming effects or simply one strange winter, an exception? I cannot say.

I just feel it is a bit alarming, somehow, and I hope I am wrong.

And I hope that snow will be back, one day.