When the weather is bad, you could miss Boston

The weather here has been changeable. Last week, on Wednesday it snowed horrible wet snow that didn't settle all day. It was nasty wet weather that inspired me to get my broken wellies replaced. Then at the weekend there were patches of nice sunshine, so towards the end of the day I went for a wander into Boston and this took me over the Longfellow bridge (or the salt 'n' pepper bridge as I prefer to call it). The Longfellow bridge is one of my favourite bridges, because the T goes over it, and you get this great view of downtown Boston which is particularly beautiful (and hard to photograph) at night.

Now on the snowy day I had walked from MIT to the bridge to see if I could see Boston through the snow. So now I have a bunch of photos comparing the views of Boston on a snowy Wednesday and a sunny Sunday - behold!

This is so close to being exactly the same photo on different days - I think just the angle is different. I even have my ear buds in the wrong ear in both photos, because apparently I can't tell my right from left. Or I just don't care.

Note how I am much happier when not being pelted be wet snow that refuses to settle on anything but my coat.

It really was a much nicer day on Sunday (right). You can see buildings in the background because there isn't terrible wet snow. Also the street lamps are more vertical. They are like flowers that have been able to grow towards the light.

The red line train is going across the bridge in the left hand photo above. The passengers will not have had a very good view of Boston on that particular day.

Here is a view of a tall building in downtown Boston. The right hand one is just as the sun is beginning to set, and has gone behind a cloud, so maybe taken around 4:30 in the afternoon. The left hand photo is taken at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, in my lunch break. The visibility does not reflect the time of day very well.

Note shiny, shiny dome of the State building is in the middle in the non-snow picture

The photo above appears to have been actually taken from the same spot (get me and my photo skillzzz). I love the way that the State building (the big gold dome) is nearly invisible on the snowy, sleety day. If I had taken non-snow photo a little earlier in the day, when the sun was higher and shining directly on the State building it would have been much more dazzling. It really does catch you attention!

To conclude, bad weather can affect visibility. 

This work was supported by Mat's old iPhone.

PS In the wikipedia article for the Longfellow bridge, did you notice how the river is frozen? The main river hasn't even got close to freezing this year.