Plausible: One Cold Ice Bench In Lithuania

Because of my previous investigation into weather photo hoaxes, I was immediately suspicious when I saw this picture uploaded by AccuWeather.com Facebook Fan Edvinas K.:

My first thought was that this was a re-purposing of the Lake Geneva, Switzerland ice photos, claiming to be from this week in Lithuania. But on closer inspection, it didn't seem to match any of those photos. Consulting with Jim Andrews, we determined that the photo was likely legitimate. (There's no way to prove whether or not Edvinas actually took the photo, but at least (probably) it's not from another time or place).

Here's why: This was said to have been taken in Nida, Lithuania. Checking Google Maps, it was obviously a location where you could get cold temperatures along with blowing sea spray (which caused the Geneva Ice photos).

We looked at the nearest observations from a meteorological station and they indicated high freezing temperatures and high winds from the east (meaning that the freezing spray came from the Courland Lagoon, not from the Baltic Sea as one would assume). Since Europe has been experiencing a record and deadlystormy and cold wave, that means that this is not an everyday occurrence - in other words it's rare enough to warrant a photo.

If you look at some of the photos after you click through to the Google Map below, it's obvious that the location was correct. Even though I couldn't find a picture of this specific bench, as the Mythbusters say... "Plausible."