Thinking Out Loud » weather

We did NOT have a blizzard

Lee — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:35:52 +0000

It snowed for two days. I called it a blizzard. According to environment Canada though, if I understood the weather report, we were having a heavy snow fall. You need to have falling snow, winds over 50 km/hr and extreme cold weather and wind chill. It was actually only about -5 degrees, so we didn’t qualify. But our heavy snowfall (read blizzard here – my opinion) did close all of the highways, and pretty much made driving in the city impossible.

Here’s some photos:

where's the car

My car is under there someplace.

My back driveway

A lot of snow!

Lee — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:56:52 +0000

They said it was gonna snow yesterday, and they were right.

I always like the first snowfall of the year. I’m not sure why. I even like the cooler temperatures, and don’t miss the sunny, warm (hot, in my opinion) summer days. There’s something about the crisp feeling on my face, or maybe it’s the fresh, clean smell of the air in general. As I’ve said before, autumn and early winter are my favourite times of the year.

It’s a good thing I got all of the goldfish inside two days ago. They are tough little critters, but I doubt they could have survived a pool of slush.

Bandit feels the same way about the snow. I’m sure it’s my imagination, but I’m positive his eyes get bigger in a happy surprise, and he turns into a 3-month old puppy running around in circles and rolling in the fresh white snow. And, as you can see, since he’s a real “man-dog” one of the first requirements is to write you name in the snow.

The tree in the picture below is folded in half by the weight of the snow. The branches don’t usually hang down like that. In fact, all of the trees in my yard are bent with the weight of the snow. I have a weeping birch that was about 7 feet tall, and it was squashed down to about 2 1/2 feet. When I brushed the snow off of it, it stretched out to about four feet tall.

I’m going out right now to find my snow shovel and clear the sidewalks. I’ll add some more photos later on today.

Alberta for a week

Lee — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:09:32 +0000

It’s one o’clock a.m. and I should be sleeping since I want an early start for my trip to Alberta tomorrow morning – later this morning, actually.

According to the weather report, there is a chance of snow flurries here in Saskatchewan. There’s supposed to be mild temperatures with a mix of sun and rain and in Alberta.

I hate driving in a snowstorm, so if it’s ugly here in the morning, I’ll postpone the trip for a day or two. Look for me tomorrow afternoon sometime. I’ll be the one calling from my cell for directions…

Tired of winter

Lee — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:26:11 +0000

It happens every year in late February or early March.

I get tired of winter.

The days are getting longer. The sun shines more often. There’s hints of spring coming (the squirrels are out, and there’s flocks of nattering birds in the trees) but it just doesn’t warm up. Not enough, anyway. The warmer temperatures are insignificant with the winds that whip around this time of year.

The truth is, spring is my least favourite time of the year.

It’s muddy. It’s wet. It’s damp. It’s unpredictable. You might need a parka and mitts, you might not need a jacket at all. I always catch some sort of flu/cold bug to make me miserable. The roads are either icy or under water, or both. It’s windy. It snows, it rains, it snows some more.

I’m convinced I even lose more hair in the springtime. I have no proof, but I believe spring is a factor in male pattern baldness.

But, it does bring on summer. So, I’ll put up with a month or so of less desirable conditions (and less hair), if winter will end in the next few days.

Summer hail storm

Lee — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:29:41 +0000

Yesterday afternoon about 4:00 PM, Moose Jaw got hit with a hail storm. It came on quickly, noisily and unannounced.

Fortunately for me (and I’m being sarcastic) it only hit about a five square block of town, and both of my houses got in on the bargain. The hail was so intense that you could not see across the street. The hail lasted for about 20 minutes or longer, with hailstones the size of golf balls.

My caragana hedge looks like a bunch of sticks. There’s about 4 inches of leaves and branches I haven’t got raked off my lawn yet, because unbelievable as it sounds, there were still hailstones under the leaves at noon today. And the temperature is around 25 degrees. The shingles at both houses got beat up pretty bad, and I lost a few “moon-ray” lights. The bedding out plants and flowers look like they have been through a paper shredder.

Of course, I have photos to show. Click on the thumbnails for a bigger image.

I don’t think I have ever seen this much hail. As you can see, it looks like snow banks on the street. The hail and broken branches and leaves from trees plugged up the catch basins, so the rain couldn’t get away (and it was raining hard) and there were quite a few flooded streets.

You can see the size of the hailstones that hit in these photos. My car is camouflaged now, probably to hide the new dents. And my hammock makes a great man-sized ice bucket – if you don’t mind maple leaves for garnish in your favourite beverage. By the way, my lawn isn’t that green – that’s a layer of tree leaves and broken branches covering the grass.