Blinding snowstorms, or whiteouts, obscure the landscape during the winter months, and summer rains can be heavy.
Perhaps for these reasons, it is often twilight or nighttime in Mr. Sebald's stories; mists or fog often obscure the landscape; and streets are deserted and silent.
But for the more concrete parts of Dr. Sarkin's story, perplexing narrative and publishing missteps manage to obscure the landscape effectively enough that the reader is sorely tempted to head elsewhere.
A blizzard can obscure the landscape, an ice field will hide weak points and crevasses, a sudden swirling wind can cut through your protective clothing and drain away your body heat.
"You almost don't notice how many billboards there actually are obscuring the landscape," Mr. Phelps said.
Bit by bit, like mist obscuring a familiar landscape, communication becomes obscure and incomplete.
It is privately owned and not open for tours — a blue-gray house with green trim, larger and more impressive than the other birthplaces and partly obscured by landscaping.
On newer homes, two clean outs usually exist, and they are ground-level — sometimes obscured by landscaping.
When she helped to reinstall the gallery of early 20th-century Mexican art, for example, Ms. Temkin's deputy Leah Dickerman included a relatively obscure, delicately colored landscape by Juan O'Gorman, "The Sand Mines of Tetelpa" (1942), among works by artists like Frida Kahlo.
These physical characteristics of forests may affect the abundance and biodiversity of forest inhabitants, and obscure effects of landscape changes (e.g., percent forest cover) on animal species.
