Monday, March 10, 2008

Spring Forward Snowstorm

Ok so it's March. That mean's storm chase season is almost here. We had a day or so of mild weather with 10C temps. Talk about a tease. It melted some of our snow, then we got it back with, you guessed it, another winterstorm on March 5th. We got 20cm of, dare I say it? White crap. Sorry snow freaks, but winter is cold, icy and tornadoless. That just doesn't appeal to me. Pretty ironic coming from a Canadian born winter baby.

Then after that, I heard talk of a blizzard that was in order in the next couple of days. Oh good gawd. You mean winter is NOT over yet?! Then I heard talk of it possibly being a dud and that we would only get about 20-30cm. Ok, so that was the minimum forecast amount? It would depend where the line that divides 20-30cm and 40-50cm would end up, which was supposed to be east of Waterloo. Ok, I can deal with that, I think... better than 40-50cm!

So March 8th comes around and it is snowing like nobody's business. This doesn't look good, I thought. At 1:50pm I decided to take my first measurement. 7 inches already?! But the storm just started! How is that possible? Well............

At 4:50, I measured 8 inches. Ummm why is it still accumulating? Please stop....
Time for dig out number 1! The snow was at the rear bumper of the van.

And it still snowed and snowed. Then at 7:55pm, 15 inches had fallen. Oh please stop, I'm begging you!!! The storm didn't end until about an hour or so later, with a whopping 16 inches... or 40cm. And if you include the lake effect snow band that came from the southwest later that night, that would put the amount of new snow to about 42cm. Say, that's nothing... Ottawa got 52cm. Poor folks... maybe that's why all the storm chasers live south. Hahahaha!

My father and I dug out for the second time. Our snow banks are just a little over 5ft tall and the depth of snow on our front lawn looks to be at my waist. It is level with the bottom of our bay window. The snow in the backyard is at my thighs. Our backyard fence is more than half buried. Unbelievable but any snow loving kid would be in heaven. I am not a kid and I am not snow loving, so therefore I am not in heaven, but rather in hell that froze over.

If it were not for the melts we had, we would have snow hiding close to half of our house it seems.

We got so much snow that the Newfoundland Club in Cambridge had its roof collapse. No body was killed, but injuries ranged from a bruised lung to fractured vertebrae to frostbitten fingers.

THIS IS THE MOST SNOW I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY FRICKIN LIFE! Apparently the article in the paper today said that we broke our winter of 1923-24 record (245.3cm) for snowfall amounts this winter. Good grief. Where is spring when you need it?

Global warming my ass. Here is a pic of the aftermath the following day. At least with "spring forward", it is one hour less of winter!