It's not that it is snowing...

[Lawrence]

it's how much it is snowing. 3 weeks ago we had no snow, that in itself is unusual as it normally starts in November and continues into March. And then in a three week span we had 4 major snow storms with about three or four "minor" ones tossed in for giggles, I would think.

Yesterday, we received more snow than we did in the last three weeks, actually in the whole year. Here is two pictures. To put it in to perspective, the fence is a six foot fence I built with two benches attached; one on each side of the corner post. Also I can now walk on top of the roof of the house on the other side of the fence, the snow drifted that high, due to the 80K gusts. The tree in the other picture: normally you can walk under it's branches, they are normally above the post of the deck, now they are drooping far under. Typically under the tree no snow accumulates throughout the winter, but today there is about two feet of snow under it, all from yesterday.

Global warming my butt. If you have excess CO2, please send it to Canada, and if you can please burn as much wood as you can, run your car even if you are not planning to drive it anywhere's. We Canadians are begging you, thanks.

 

[Amaury]

I'm jealous. We've had a high pressure ridge lingering around the last few weeks, giving us warmer than usual, though not uncommon, temperatures. We've yet to have a major snowstorm for winter 2014 - 2015, though we did receive some snow a while ago.

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/l/USWA0130:1:US

Temperature highs are usually more around the 30s this time of the year.

Similar to you, we also usually start seeing snow in November or December (a few years ago, we had a really good winter, where it started snowing in October and it snowed moderately for a few days around Christmas and on Christmas itself, enough to really cover everything). A high pressure ridge is the reason we didn't get a major snowstorm for winter 2013 - 2014 until February 8, 2014, which lasted from about 6:00 PM until 3:30 AM the next day. It dumped a pretty good amount (at least a foot, I'd say), but it didn't last long.

 

[LPH]

Global warming my butt.

Actually -- yes. Global warming has changed local weather patterns now so that there are more extreme situations in precipitation. In your location -- you have heavy snow. In other locations there is now drought.

Weather variation on our planet can be described with a rough bell-shaped curve. So-called normal weather is very common while extreme weather is rare.

Unfortunately the rare events are becoming more common.

http://www.climatecommunication.org/new/features/extreme-weather/overview/#sthash.5Wk4svml.dpuf

Even politicians on both isles in the U.S. have agreed that there are changes to the climate pattern -- costing the U.S. billions. Sadly oil companies want everyone to ignore the pattern changes so that they can sell more oil and gas.

 

[Kevin]

You see the same pattern all over. Take Detroit--
Hold on. Why do you know all these statistics offhand?
Oh, um, no idea. I definitely spend my evenings hanging out with friends, and not curating a REALLY NEAT database of temperature statistics. Because, pshh, who would want to do that, right? Also, snowfall records.

 

[Amaury]

Actually -- yes. Global warming has changed local weather patterns now so that there are more extreme situations in precipitation. In your location -- you have heavy snow. In other locations there is now drought.



Unfortunately the rare events are becoming more common.

http://www.climatecommunication.org/new/features/extreme-weather/overview/#sthash.5Wk4svml.dpuf

Even politicians on both isles in the U.S. have agreed that there are changes to the climate pattern -- costing the U.S. billions. Sadly oil companies want everyone to ignore the pattern changes so that they can sell more oil and gas.

I personally have never said it doesn't exist, but at the same time, weather won't be the same every year, it just won't. And people shouldn't freak out because, "OMG! It's February 16, 2015 and it's 47 degrees outside due to a high pressure ridge! It's usually around 30 degrees!"

As some examples:

• January 1, 2005: 25 degrees (H), 13 degrees (L)
  
• January 1, 2006: 22 degrees (H), 16 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2007: 31 degrees (H), 8 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2008: 29 degrees (H), 15 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2009: -10 degrees (H), -14 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2010: 18 degrees (H), 6 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2011: 45 degrees (H), 24 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2012: 32 degrees (H), 30 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2013: 27 degrees (H), 17 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2014: 26 degrees (H), 11 degrees (L)
• January 1, 2015: 34 degrees (H), 28 degrees (L)

All of these figures were completely made-up and are not accurate of what we actually saw those days, but they are what I've experienced for winters here over the years. Personally, the lowest temperature I've ever experienced was -10 degrees one winter.

Then for winters in general:

• Winter 2004 - 2005: Lots of snow
• Winter 2005 - 2006: Lots of snow
• Winter 2006 - 2007: Lots of snow
• Winter 2007 - 2008: Lots of snow
  
• Winter 2008 - 2009: Lots of snow
  
• Winter 2009 - 2010: Moderate snow
  
• Winter 2010 - 2011: Moderate snow
• Winter 2011 - 2012: Lots of snow
• Winter 2012 - 2013: Lots of snow
• Winter 2013 - 2014: Moderate snow
• Winter 2014 - 2015: Little snow

All figures were made up, again, with the exception of the last two, based on my personal experiences.

 

[Lawrence]

I'm shoveled out. It took my wife and I a few hours to clear the driveway yesterday. As the road was not plowed we walked to McDonalds to buy a latte and a coffee, when we returned a small plow cleared a lane on our road... and we shoveled again, our coffee's sitting on top of the roof of our car while we tackled the bank of snow left by the plow. Oddly enough, when we were done, and it was -13C with a wind chill of -22C, our coffee's were still warm. It was then I noticed how sturdy McDonalds coffee cups are, well insulated, not like the flimsy Tim Horton coffee cups.

This morning at about 6:00am I heard a noise that woke me, I had no clue what it was as I was not fully awake. I thought it was the furnace running, which it was, but then I figured out it was the sound of the garage door opening. Had to curse at that point as I realized the larger plow must have went by and my wife went out to start clearing the bottom of the driveway. I got up to get dress to help out, but it turned out my wife finished clearing the bottom of the driveway and was just coming back in. She gets up each day at 4am to do her long distance running, this morning she went out at 4:30am to shovel and finished at 6am.

I met her downstairs and she said, "your valentines day present"

I was shocked. Not that she shoveled, but at the fact the large plow came by over the night, normally we have to wait a full day or two afterwards, and I expected to be shoveling later this afternoon. And a little shocked that she was in a good mood, she couldn't run outside this morning but she said she had a great work-out. An hour and a half from 4:30am to 6am, when most are still in bed, shoveling in the cold.

Respect.

I always respected my wife, though I know I never showed/let her know enough. Today, I definitely respect her even more. Not because she shoveled a snow bank taller than her five foot height, but because she never considered waking me up to help her out, it was something she wanted to do for me.

Some say global warming caused by man. Some say global warming caused by nature as the earth recovers from a mini-ice age from 350 years ago, and some even say the beginnings of global freezing. Don't know, but what I do know is that the older you get, the longer winter feels.

We have another weather alert for the day after tomorrow, more significant snow fall coming. No place to put it, and that means the plow will go by again to make room for the new snow fall, and I hope I get the chance to pay it forward (though with every shovel full of snow I toss, I know I'll be cursing winter under my breath).

 

[Lawrence]

NASA's satellite image of the Maritime provinces

The link above shows from space how much snow Prince Edward Island received. For those who do not know, P.E.I. is one of three Maritime provinces located in Canada. Nova Scotia is the elongated grey mass at the bottom of the photo, New Brunswick is shown on the western side, and P.E.I. is the small crescent of grey, north-west of Nova Scotia, and east of New Brunswick. The white surrounding the island is sea ice.

On Jan 26, Charlottetown P.E.I. airport had no snow, three weeks later they have had over 258.6 CM's of snow, the province should show mostly grey from space like the other two, but it's mostly white from the amount of snow they received. And I thought we received a lot of snow over the last 3 weeks, well compared to P.E.I., nope.

A 3 minute video of a New Brunswicker showing how much snow he received Sunday - Monday. He is snowed in.

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[CallieJo]

Does anyone remember the 1970's Global Cooling Days? A lot of people I know remember those days.

 

[LPH]

Does anyone remember the 1970's Global Cooling Days? A lot of people I know remember those days.

Yes. The beauty of science is that it is self-correcting. For example, do you remember the scare of not taking inoculations against certain diseases? The gentleman who published it received tons of press -- only later to be discredited. Sadly - people keep referencing old material. The same is true of people referencing old ideas about the environment.

The best computer models will continue to be adjusted. In the 1970s -- the computer models were -- hmm. I should look that information up !

Update: Here it is :

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm#S2P

 

[Mike Edge]

Just a tad of snow..

 

[Amaury]

No fair...!

 

[Mike Edge]

 

[Amaury]

Must... have... snow...

 

[WCFA]

View attachment 98894

I think were gonna need a bigger snow blower

 

[WCFA]

Someone call Al Gore, hes gonna need to rewrite his propaganda, I mean book.
Makes me laugh how gullible humans are. Couple people say were over heating
and everyone goes in a panic. Human panic about everything, Guns, Disease, War,
and this Global warming. Point is common sense and a little self research would tell anyone
that in most panics there is little reality to them. The earth has heated and cooled all the time.
We just had a min-ice age a few hundred years ago , in earth time its very short.
Stop panicking enjoy life and learn to live with things that are not perfect because they never will be.

 

[Lawrence]

Our province has two different special weather statements issued for it today. 1/2 of the province in under an extreme cold warning alert (-20C with windchill to -35C) for tonight and Tuesday, and the half I live in is under a heavy rainfall warning for Wednesday. Go figure.

I have never lived in an area that has issued a flash-freeze warning before. In the last 3 weeks we had 4 of them as the temperature swings from 0C in the late afternoon, to -20C overnight. It's pretty icy out there today. The rain on Wednesday is not going to help, as the temperature is suppose to drop to -10C later in the day.

 

[Nebulous]

Ahh snow, its nice to visit but it must suck to have to deal with it...

(doesn't snow where I live)

 

[Steve F]

Ahh snow, its nice to visit but it must suck to have to deal with it...

(doesn't snow where I live)

You get used to it.

Doesn't suck when you have one these

 

[Nebulous]

Heh, how much does one of those cost?

 

[Steve F]

$1400usd or more depending on model. I use the non-track version though and it's a bit cheaper.