Well, mostly.
Yes, I’m the one who ordered the snow and cold. My first order, for April, ended up in Halifax by mistake so I had to reorder. And you know how delivery estimates go — this was supposed to be here for my birthday but it got held up at the border. And they never sent the amount they were supposed to…you know how it is.
I can’t believe it’s 26 degrees Celsius today. It’s April 2. WTF?!?!, Mother Nature? Have the Chinooks shifted east?
I was still awake when the sun came up this morning. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.) I live high enough up that I could the lovely clear sky above the beige smog building up over the city centre. I see now (at 18:30) that the sun is obscured by that same smog, which has grown and expanded to cover the visible sky high over Ottawa. Ah, yes. Summer haze. I expected to see smog advisories but apparently the air quality was only 5.
According to the Weather Network, several cities in Eastern Canada have broken temperature records today, including Ottawa (which beat the previous 54-year record by over 10 degrees) and Halifax.
That April 9 dip wasn’t there yesterday so I’m still holding out hope for a late April snow storm. :p
I asked for snow. Wanted it so badly back in late June that the Universe tried it’s best to manifest it for me.
Unfortunately, it’s tough for even the Powers That Be to create snow in July here in the Northern Hemisphere. But it precipitated. Boy howdy, did it ever. So, it wasn’t snow. Meh. It also wasn’t humid, grotesque summer grossness. That’s a WIN in my book, even more so because I really like thunder storms. Cold and wet instead of hot and sticky = fun times.
So, mia culpa. I really should apologize to those of you unhappy at the record-breaking rain, but I just can’t lie to you — it’s been my kind of Ottawa July, and I hope August brings more of the same.
she really blows.
It was building up all night. Now (6:30 am), it’s gusting to 69 km/h, wind chill -13 (which is a huge drop from the zero-ish it was hovering around all day yesterday).
Holy cow, it sounds spooky. And there’s a mighty mean draft coming in around my windows. Brrrr!
Kind of funny — it was high wind speeds (up to 80km/h) that caused the problems that caused the traffic jams that NiK was in last night in Vancouver. Same direction, even. The winds here on Sunday caused power outages and all sorts of problems here. Hope this doesn’t exacerbate those problems.
Woke up to the promised snow. Environment Canada says 15 to 20 centimeters before it’s done, the Weather Channel says 10 centimeters by Monday. Here’s a shot of the Rideau River through curtain of snow.
The snow storm is apparently going full bore in southern Ontario, but there are no warnings or watches yet for Ottawa. So, no snowmageddon here just yet.
Environment Canada‘s animated radar imagery shows the storm slowly moving towards Ottawa and Montreal, but who knows if or when it will actually reach us here. There *is* a special weather statement from 06:45 that includes the City of Ottawa and Gatineau and says (in part):
The second in a series of snowstorms is coming in right on target towards southern Ontario today. The Colorado low was born as Expected and is now making a bee line northeast and will move across Ohio today into Pennsylvania tonight. Heavy snow has arrived into southwestern Ontario with Windsor airport already reporting 3 cm in under an hour along with visibility of only a couple hundred metres in heavy snow. The snow will reach across the greater Toronto area during the morning rush hour and on into eastern Ontario by noon. Most of eastern Ontario into ski country will be near the northern Fringe of this storm..With snowfall amounts of 10 centimetres or Less on tap.
Another potentially significant storm also emerging from Colorado will come quick on the heels of todays storm. It will affect a Much broader area including ski country and all of eastern Ontario including Ottawa. Snow and blowing snow will arrive Saturday Night from the southwest to the Golden Horseshoe and north to Georgian Bay. Snow will rapidly spread east across all of eastern Ontario including Ottawa Sunday morning. It will ease off somewhat during the day Sunday in southwestern sections but should Continue Sunday night over eastern Ontario. Total accumulations of 10 to 20 centimetres are quite possible in many regions.
(As an aside, whoever types in the special weather statements either copies and pastes badly or really has no clue about proper spelling and punctuation.)
It’s kind of funny — when you watch the radar animation, you can see the leading edge of the storm flowing around this invisible sphere of protection around Ottawa. Will the full brunt of the storm coming up behind it eventually manage to overwhelm the protective barrier? Or will it continue to just reach around Ottawa to batter Montreal and the northeastern states instead? Oooh, the suspense…
Added at 16:45:
It’s been snowing now for about 1/2 hour or so. There’s a blowing snow warning for Ottawa South.
The first image to the left shows what it looked like (through the screen) when I posted my comment at 16:09.
The bottom image is what it looked like about 20 minutes ago.
The cat had a good roll on the icy cold concrete but didn’t need much encouragement to go back inside again — that should tell you it was nippy out there, since he absolutely loves cold concrete. The Weather Network says it’s -17, -28 with the wind chill.
Brrrrrr!!
Life Begins at 41...or maybe 43 