Clear. Fog patches early this evening. Wind up to 15 km/h. Low minus 39. Wind chill minus 33 this evening and minus 53 overnight. Frostbite in minutes.
Canadian Poncho said
Feb 3, 2022
Now they are talking 30-50cm of snow for us. +5c today so we'll have a bit of a thaw before the storm hits overnight.
gparis7 said
Feb 3, 2022
Well into January we had absolutely no snow. Then we had about 20 centimeters, which was still on the ground before I left the city last Thursday.
This is what on my lawn now, following nearly 100 mm of rain and local flooding over the weekend. Next forecast calls for freezing rain, then another warm-up.
Now they are talking 30-50cm of snow for us. +5c today so we'll have a bit of a thaw before the storm hits overnight.
Extended period of freezing rain "at times heavy" for NS tomorrow, then changing to snow overnight. Coastal areas will have a longer period of rain before the transition.
It seems they are still uncertain about amounts and when the transition will happen, but as usual it will vary across the province.
This sounds a little ominous:
"Remarks: Periods of rain will transition to freezing rain and ice pellets early on Friday morning. Freezing rain will become heavy at times and continue through Friday evening into Saturday. Current guidance indicates a risk of significant ice accretion on surfaces by Saturday morning.
Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots will become icy, slippery and extremely hazardous. Beware of branches or electrical wires that could break under the weight of ice. Extended and widespread utility outages are possible."
On the plus side, winds will be light, around 20 km/h, and there probably won't be a bunch of shoveling involved... On the negative side, temps will plunge down to -20C Saturday night after the storm has passed. That will be tough for those who lose power and don't have a backup. Hopefully the light winds will limit the power outages. Hard to say what is going to happen at this point.
Edit: I misspoke about NS... seems like the more northerly areas will get 30 cm of snow/ice pellet mix, so not a freezing rain event for everybody.
-- Edited by MC on Thursday 3rd of February 2022 09:11:30 AM
Canadian Poncho said
Feb 3, 2022
I was just reading a post by a really good weather guru I follow. He said Nova Scotia is going to get a lot of freezing rain so you guys there may want to prepare for extended power outages.
65 SD L79 said
Feb 3, 2022
left the Falls this morning and it was snowing still. not far down the road it stopped. I i had to drive to north of Milton ON today for work came back home and it has not stopped here. Tomorrow i have to drive to the Kitchener Waterloo area
MC said
Feb 3, 2022
Canadian Poncho wrote:
I was just reading a post by a really good weather guru I follow. He said Nova Scotia is going to get a lot of freezing rain so you guys there may want to prepare for extended power outages.
At 11am, Environment Canada added a rainfall warning to the previous freezing rain warning, indicating that Halifax and other coastal areas will have a greater rain/freezing rain ratio than previously predicted. So better for us along the coast (except for flooding when combined with melting snow on the ground), but for more inland and northerly areas, more freezing rain/ice pellets/snow.
Typically, for storms like this, NS Power deploys crews to potential problem areas in advance of the storm, but it all depends on how widespread the problem is. I suspect they won't be doing much travelling to actual outage locations until the freezing rain lets up on Saturday, though.
I'm ready for whatever happens. No plan to go anywhere tomorrow. Have lots of salt for the aftermath... it's winter, so we have to expect winter weather.
Pontiacanada said
Feb 3, 2022
Only 30 km - 40ish km winds in our area, which is good news. I'm thinking our area will be a snow event only, no rain.
DonSSDD said
Feb 3, 2022
+10 here now, lots of weather coming, it will be rain or snow or drizzle, maybe freezing forms of all those. They dont know as this weather system may shift east or west and the east side gets snow, west get rain, in between gets freezing crap. Que Sera, but Im hope its rain only.
Canadian Poncho said
Feb 3, 2022
Wow +10. Do you have any snow on the ground? We hit 5c today. We still have quite a bit of snow on the ground however.
MC said
Feb 3, 2022
+6 in the Halifax area at the moment and there's lots of snow on the ground. The last storm snowed, then freezing rain fell on top of that, so the snow has had a hard, crusty 'protective layer' on it. Looking outside I haven't noticed the snow go down much but that will change if we get a lot of rain, but there's too much snow to expect it to go away.
66 Grande guy said
Feb 3, 2022
-21 on the north side of the house and +6 on the south. No wonder it's doing a fair bit of creaking!
DonSSDD said
Feb 4, 2022
Canadian Poncho wrote:
Wow +10. Do you have any snow on the ground? We hit 5c today. We still have quite a bit of snow on the ground however.
We are like MC, had about a ft of snow and it turned to ice. A lot of ice disappeared yesterday but currently it +1 and forecast is for 24 hours of rain/freezing rain, high tomorrow -5, low -16 tomorrow night. The crap winter continues.
DonSSDD said
Feb 4, 2022
I was in Montreal for part of the January 1998 ice storm, drove up, stayed 4 days, came home. It did freezing rain for many days, big steels towers collapsed in the 100s, trees in the thousands. At least we will not see huge wind today but power could be out for a while.
Pontiacanada said
Feb 4, 2022
Supposed to snow most of Friday, Saturday. I won't be shoveling/snow blowing until Sunday morning. Snow only here, and the wind isn't blizzard-force ... average Winter storm. Glad my Wife and I got our booster shots yesterday!
Canadian Poncho said
Feb 4, 2022
So far just rain and ice pellets in the Banana Belt of PEI
67Poncho said
Feb 4, 2022
Another cool one for us today but up to +1 on Monday. A 35 and more degree difference.
I was in Montreal for part of the January 1998 ice storm, drove up, stayed 4 days, came home. It did freezing rain for many days, big steels towers collapsed in the 100s, trees in the thousands. At least we will not see huge wind today but power could be out for a while.
In November of 2004, NS had a freak autumn storm which caused an accumulation of heavy wet snow on everything, that brought down a bunch of 1950s-era towers. As a result of that NS Power received a lot of criticism and and there was a provincial inquiry into the state of the power grid. As a result of that, IIRC, they invested in infrastructure improvements that would supposedly prevent catastrophic failures like this from happening again. The winds during that storm reached 90 km/h. Anecdotally, we used to have a lot of power outages before that, like every time it was moderately windy our power would go out for a few hours. After the upgrades, our power has rarely gone out - coincidence, or result of improvements, I'm not sure.
This storm will be pretty much all ice, but the winds are not scheduled to be high (20 - 40 km/h), so hopefully it won't as hard on power transmission lines. It will be a good test for the infrastructure, I suppose. I did see a tweet by NS power last night that they have deployed crews around the province in expectation of downed wires and such. It's going to go into a good freeze Saturday night, but temps are supposed to be above freezing again by Tuesday, so hopefully the ice will mostly melt next week.
I realize South Shore and the Valley didn't do so well in the past couple of storms, though, so I'm wishing everybody (including me) good luck!
Another cool one for us today but up to +1 on Monday. A 35 and more degree difference.
I'd like to think I could handle those low temps but I'm not sure I could.
gparis7 said
Feb 4, 2022
DonSSDD wrote:
I was in Montreal for part of the January 1998 ice storm, drove up, stayed 4 days, came home. It did freezing rain for many days, big steels towers collapsed in the 100s, trees in the thousands. At least we will not see huge wind today but power could be out for a while.
I was also in Montreal at the tail end of that situation. There were still many outages and they were still trying to restore all power, though the area downtown where I was had its power back.
We dodged the freezing rain/rain. The winds were howling up here. Some parts of the property have 4'+ drifts, some parts have grass showing.
And I'm glad because we were so dry last year, we can use all the precipitation that comes our way.
another blast for us coming. Rain first then switching over. Fill up the tank on the Kubota, load up on fire wood
Well into January we had absolutely no snow. Then we had about 20 centimeters, which was still on the ground before I left the city last Thursday.
This is what on my lawn now, following nearly 100 mm of rain and local flooding over the weekend. Next forecast calls for freezing rain, then another warm-up.
Extended period of freezing rain "at times heavy" for NS tomorrow, then changing to snow overnight. Coastal areas will have a longer period of rain before the transition.
It seems they are still uncertain about amounts and when the transition will happen, but as usual it will vary across the province.
This sounds a little ominous:
"Remarks: Periods of rain will transition to freezing rain and ice pellets early on Friday morning. Freezing rain will become heavy at times and continue through Friday evening into Saturday. Current guidance indicates a risk of significant ice accretion on surfaces by Saturday morning.
Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots will become icy, slippery and extremely hazardous. Beware of branches or electrical wires that could break under the weight of ice. Extended and widespread utility outages are possible."
On the plus side, winds will be light, around 20 km/h, and there probably won't be a bunch of shoveling involved... On the negative side, temps will plunge down to -20C Saturday night after the storm has passed. That will be tough for those who lose power and don't have a backup. Hopefully the light winds will limit the power outages. Hard to say what is going to happen at this point.
Edit: I misspoke about NS... seems like the more northerly areas will get 30 cm of snow/ice pellet mix, so not a freezing rain event for everybody.
-- Edited by MC on Thursday 3rd of February 2022 09:11:30 AM
I was just reading a post by a really good weather guru I follow. He said Nova Scotia is going to get a lot of freezing rain so you guys there may want to prepare for extended power outages.
left the Falls this morning and it was snowing still. not far down the road it stopped. I i had to drive to north of Milton ON today for work came back home and it has not stopped here. Tomorrow i have to drive to the Kitchener Waterloo area
At 11am, Environment Canada added a rainfall warning to the previous freezing rain warning, indicating that Halifax and other coastal areas will have a greater rain/freezing rain ratio than previously predicted. So better for us along the coast (except for flooding when combined with melting snow on the ground), but for more inland and northerly areas, more freezing rain/ice pellets/snow.
Typically, for storms like this, NS Power deploys crews to potential problem areas in advance of the storm, but it all depends on how widespread the problem is. I suspect they won't be doing much travelling to actual outage locations until the freezing rain lets up on Saturday, though.
I'm ready for whatever happens. No plan to go anywhere tomorrow. Have lots of salt for the aftermath... it's winter, so we have to expect winter weather.
Only 30 km - 40ish km winds in our area, which is good news. I'm thinking our area will be a snow event only, no rain.
+6 in the Halifax area at the moment and there's lots of snow on the ground. The last storm snowed, then freezing rain fell on top of that, so the snow has had a hard, crusty 'protective layer' on it. Looking outside I haven't noticed the snow go down much but that will change if we get a lot of rain, but there's too much snow to expect it to go away.
-21 on the north side of the house and +6 on the south. No wonder it's doing a fair bit of creaking!
We are like MC, had about a ft of snow and it turned to ice. A lot of ice disappeared yesterday but currently it +1 and forecast is for 24 hours of rain/freezing rain, high tomorrow -5, low -16 tomorrow night. The crap winter continues.
Supposed to snow most of Friday, Saturday. I won't be shoveling/snow blowing until Sunday morning. Snow only here, and the wind isn't blizzard-force ... average Winter storm. Glad my Wife and I got our booster shots yesterday!
Another cool one for us today but up to +1 on Monday. A 35 and more degree difference.
In November of 2004, NS had a freak autumn storm which caused an accumulation of heavy wet snow on everything, that brought down a bunch of 1950s-era towers. As a result of that NS Power received a lot of criticism and and there was a provincial inquiry into the state of the power grid. As a result of that, IIRC, they invested in infrastructure improvements that would supposedly prevent catastrophic failures like this from happening again. The winds during that storm reached 90 km/h. Anecdotally, we used to have a lot of power outages before that, like every time it was moderately windy our power would go out for a few hours. After the upgrades, our power has rarely gone out - coincidence, or result of improvements, I'm not sure.
This storm will be pretty much all ice, but the winds are not scheduled to be high (20 - 40 km/h), so hopefully it won't as hard on power transmission lines. It will be a good test for the infrastructure, I suppose. I did see a tweet by NS power last night that they have deployed crews around the province in expectation of downed wires and such. It's going to go into a good freeze Saturday night, but temps are supposed to be above freezing again by Tuesday, so hopefully the ice will mostly melt next week.
I realize South Shore and the Valley didn't do so well in the past couple of storms, though, so I'm wishing everybody (including me) good luck!
A few links about the 2004 storm:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/100-000-nova-scotians-face-night-without-power-1.485838
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/residents-blast-nova-scotia-power-after-storm-leaves-thousands-in-dark-1.507685
https://www.canadianconsultingengineer.com/engineering/questions-raised-over-nova-scotia-s-power-grid/1000035355/
https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20041115005
https://www.ec.gc.ca/meteo-weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=9CA2BD37-1#top8
Here are a few pics I took in Burnside a few days after the storm:
And here is what they looked like before the storm:
I'd like to think I could handle those low temps but I'm not sure I could.
I was also in Montreal at the tail end of that situation. There were still many outages and they were still trying to restore all power, though the area downtown where I was had its power back.