A Touch of Gloom About the Netherlands

An essential fact that I knew before moving to the Netherlands, but did not truly comprehend, is the weather here. Starting in late August, the temperature begins to drop, and the sun disappears behind clouds for extended stretches.

One morning you wake up to find the city blanketed in dense fog, and this mist can linger for days. It gets so thick that the official driving code specifies turning on your rear fog light once visibility drops below 50 meters. That is how routine it is for the locals.

The weather is wildly moody; it constantly changes its mind. After endless grey days, the sun finally breaks through, and you eagerly get ready for a walk. Yet before you can even tie your shoelaces, dark clouds roll back in, followed by rain, snow, or even hail!

This unpredictable nature is so normal that during the colder months, weather apps can barely provide an accurate forecast beyond 24 hours.

You gradually get used to seeing yellow and red weather alerts flash across your phone screen. You also get used to waking up in the middle of the night to terrifying cracks of thunder, looking out to see raindrops the size of your palm!

Another tough aspect is that during the second half of the year, it feels like perpetual nighttime. Darkness sets in by 3:30 or 4:00 PM and lasts until 8:00 or 8:30 AM. This extended darkness naturally creates fertile ground for seasonal blues, especially for newcomers arriving from sunny Iran.

Flip the exact same setting 180 degrees, and you get summer.

When temperatures climb toward 37 degrees Celsius, heat exhaustion hits fast. You might wonder why people in southern Iran handle 60-degree heat just fine while people struggle here. The answer lies in northern latitudes: the UV index and sun exposure here are intense, making your skin burn remarkably fast.

I never used sunscreen in the blazing 50 to 60-degree heat back home (which was admittedly a mistake), but in Groningen's 28-degree weather, stepping out without sunscreen leaves my skin aching and sunburnt.

Another fascinating reality in the first half of the year is that it feels like endless daylight. Dawn breaks as early as 3:30 AM, and faint twilight lingers in the horizon until 11:30 PM! What is more, twilight transitions happen so fast that the sky seems to turn bright or dark almost instantly!