Weather Watches & Warnings: The Weather Network
I just looked outside to find tons of snow that, lucky me, I get to shovel in a few hours. After living here for a few years and working with a 7 car driveway I feel the best strategy is to check the local weather for the week and figure out when and if I have to bother moving mountains of snow about. The single most important thing to look for is whether there'll be an up in temperature and then a sudden drop and increase in wind chill. What happens then is a lot of snow creates a thermal blanket with the warm ground which if the temp goes above -5˚C will melt a layer of snow close to the ground. If the temp then drops that layer freezes into solid ice. This is compounded by snowplows which create a mountain of massive ice chunks and solidified snow and dirt at the end of your driveway. Today, there was a weather warning for the province that started out reading like a novel and near the end deteriorates into grammatical sewage. Maybe I'm reading to far into it but seems to me that whoever's responsible for posting weather warnings got a creative streak and then one of their superiors walked in and they had to shuffle some papers around and get back to work.
WITH THE FIRST 10 CM SNOWFALL NOW FADING INTO MEMORY..THE SECOND IN A FASCINATING SERIES OF SIGNIFICANT SNOWSTORMS IS BEARING DOWN ON SOUTHERN ONTARIO FROM COLORADO. THE COLORADO LOW HAS FORMED AS EXPECTED IS RACING NORTHEAST TO CENTRAL OHIO LATER TODAY THEN INTO PENNSYLVANIA TONIGHT. A RAPIDLY EXPANDING AND INTENSIFYING AREA OF SNOW OVER THE US MIDWEST INTO MICHIGAN HAS JUST MOVED INTO WINDSOR EARLY THIS MORNING AND WILL CRUISE NORTHEAST INTO THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE BETWEEN 7 AND 8 AM THEN EAST DOWN HIGHWAY 401 INTO EASTERN ONTARIO ALL THE WAY TO KINGSTON BY THIS AFTERNOON. THE SNOW WILL BECOME QUITE HEAVY AT TIMES AS THE LOW GETS CLOSER. LATEST INDICATIONS KEEP ANY RISK OF A CHANGEOVER TO ICE PELLETS OR FREEZING RAIN IN ESSEX AND KENT COUNTIES FROM WINDSOR TO CHATHAM AND SOUTH TO LAKE ERIE. OTHERWISE ONLY SNOW IS EXPECTED FOR EVERYONE ELSE. SNOWFALL RATES OF 2 TO 4 CM PER HOUR ARE EXPECTED AT TIMES AS THE HEAVIEST AREAS OF SNOW MOVE THROUGH. A GENERAL SNOWFALL OF 15 TO 20 CENTIMETRES IS LIKELY ACROSS THE DISTRICT BY THIS EVENING. AREAS AROUND THE WEST END OF LAKE ONTARIO FROM DOWNTOWN TORONTO THROUGH MISSISSAUGA TO HAMILTON AND EVENTUALLY NIAGARA WILL GET SOME HELP IN THE COLD NORTHEASTERLY WINDS OFF OF LAKE ONTARIO BOOSTING SNOWFALL AMOUNTS TO NEAR 25 CM IN QUITE A FEW LOCALES. IT IS NOT ENTIRELY OUT OF THE QUESTION FOR ONE OR TWO LOCALES TO GET UP TO 30 CM SHOULD AN EMBEDDED LAKE EFFECT SNOWSQUALL DEVELOP OVER LAKE ONTARIO TODAY AS SUGGESTED BY SOME OF THE COMPUTER MODELS. WHITEOUT CONDITIONS FROM BLOWING SNOW CAUSED BY STRONG EAST TO NORTHEAST WINDS OF 40 GUSTING TO 60 KM/H WILL BE A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM WITH THIS WINTER STORM ADDING TO ITS NASTY WHITE BITE. THIS MORNINGS RUSH HOUR IN AND AROUND THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE MAY START OUT WITH NO SNOW BUT CONDITIONS WILL START TO DETERIORATE RAPIDLY AS THE SNOW MOVES IN AFTER 7 AM. HOWEVER..HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW THROUGHOUT THE DAY WILL LIKELY MAKE THE AFTERNOON COMMUTE PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT AND SLOW. TRAVELLERS SHOULD ADJUST TRAVEL PLANS ACCORDINGLY. IF TRAVEL IS NECESSARY ONE SHOULD PLAN FOR MUCH EXTRA TIME TO REACH THE PLANNED DESTINATION. DRIVING CONDITIONS WILL DETERIORATE QUICKLY AND BECOME DANGEROUS DUE TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS FROM BOTH BLOWING SNOW AND HEAVY SNOW. via Weather Watches & Warnings: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario - The Weather Network.
