Tag Archives: storm

Another weather bomb

Weather, , , ,

The media is calling today’s storm a weather bomb – apparently because of the drastic pressure change in the storm.

We’re east of the heavy snow and it’s pouring rain here and the wind is supposed to gust to 100 km/hr here, and 110 km/hr over in PEI. It was 14°C this morning and is supposed to drop to 4 by this afternoon.

There are already 11,077 customers without power in the province.

I’m not expecting the need to do an hour by hour update, because it is just wind and rain, but if something exciting happens, I’ll update!

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OK Update already,
I noticed you can see the white caps on our lake on my webcam – http://lisaschuyler.com/webcam/

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12:47pm Another update. PEI is cut off from the rest of the world! Well at least to traffic. Ferries are stopped and the Confederation Bridge is closed to traffic. Schools are sending kids home because the power is out. (Why can’t they have school without power?) >23K customers without power now. Heavy rain seems to be over. Just windy here.

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Next day update:

Worst part of the storm was having no internet all evening! The power was out closer to town, so one of the wireless internet towers in our network chain was down so I had to go without! At least I had power and TV.

Another wild day in Nova Scotia

Weather, , ,

Decent storm we’re having today!

Big winds, wet rain, and warm tropical air.

We’re we both up before 5am. Must have been the wind. I fell asleep again for awhile, but it is only 11:11 (hey look at that! I just looked at 11:11 on 11/11/11 !) and it feel like 3pm.

CAMWIZ_11-NOV-11_11-12-18-95 [SHOOT]

The winds are making our walls and roof creak and crack, but not to the extent of a real tropical storm when the pressure changes threaten to blow out the windows.

Over 8,000 customers are without power in the province right now. I’m sure that will keep growing with these gusts. Our’s flicked a few times, so we unplugged our newly fixed washing machine so it won’t get any more power surges.

Guess how much it costs to make a blinky blinky F71 flashing error code go away on a two year old Kenmore Elite front loader washing machine? $540. We could have bought 2 used machines for that price. What a sham. At least we can do laundry again.

If there are further storm developments, I’ll come back and update this post.

Update @ 11:25am
10,717 customers without power in Nova Scotia now

Update @ 12:06pm
Power went off briefly. Jeff told me to fill the tub with water so we can flush our toilets later because he’s sure we’re losing power. 11,346 customers without power now. Monty is flipping out. He hates it when the power flicks and everything beeps.

Update @ 12:14pm
Power went out briefly again. Monty is hiding under my desk. 13,460 customers without power now. Mom just sent me photos of all the snow they have in Listowel, ON this morning. Can’t see the grass!

Update @ 3:58pm
Getting really dark and really wild again out there. Raining heavy. Saw on Twitter that Antigonish has already received over 100mm of rain today.

Update @ 4:27pm
Power outages down to 3356 customers.

Update @ 6:02pm
Aww crap. Literally. There is a couple inches of backflow from the septic system in the basement laundry tub just now in the last 20 minutes. Rain is almost done. Radar shows it moving out. Still very windy. Guess the ground is over saturated again.

Laundromat excitement, and THREE storm warnings again! Woo Hoo!

What I've Been Up To, , ,

OOOOH what a day!! We had a fun family outing to the Super Suds laundromat this afternoon! Just me, Jeff, and two stuffed baskets of all our highest priority dirty clothes! Woo hoo!

You saw right through that false excitement, didn’t you?

Argh, laundromats are hideous. Bad wallpaper, people staring – yet avoiding, ripped upholstery, broken laundry machines, and out of order coin exchanges.

Through trial and error, we managed to get laundry soap out of a machine that first ate handfuls of quarters, and then move our laundry twice until we found machines that actually worked. 26 minutes later we were out of there, with two heavy baskets of very wet clothes.

At least our dryer works!

Now for the real excitement! For tomorrow, we have a Wind Warning, a Storm Surge Warning, AND a Rainfall Warning!

20111029-163515.jpg

20111029-163533.jpg

20111029-163543.jpg

Big snow storm heading to New England tomorrow

Weather, , ,

You know how I love storms… And if we can’t get a good October hurricane, a snowstorm will do!

Just imagine the tingles in my weathervane when meteorologist Henry Margusity just said on his weather blog “There is is no doubt in my mind that we are facing one of the worse snow events in decades given the heavy nature of the snow and how early in the season the snow is occurring.”

We are probably too far east to get much snow, but New Brunswick may get up to 30cm.

Can you say “AWESOME!”

Check out the latest on the storm:
Canadian – http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/meteomadness/story/57022/snow-map-and-information-on-the-storm.asp
US – http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/meteomadness/story/57022/snow-map-and-information-on-the-storm.asp

HEY! I wasn’t shakin’ my rain maker!

Weather, ,

The forecast was only calling for 10-20mm of rain tonight, but WOW did we just get dumped on, hours before I thought the rain was supposed to arrive.

It poured and poured and then it poured more and then it had the audacity to pour even MORE!

There were a few nice bolts of lightning too!

I had to work late, and by the time I got home around 6:30 the basement was half covered in water. The drain in the basement walk out was blocked! Something flowed in the river that became the back stairs and blocked up the drain. I popped out the drain and let the torrent of water go elsewhere.

I just walked around our yard to survey the damage. There is a river/waterfall coming down off the hill straight behind our dining room window. Luckily all of that water is hitting our ditch and heading south. By the time I was midway across our front lawn, I could hear a thundering waterfall. I walked down our damaged driveway, and realized that noise was coming from the ditch that runs along side our driveway. Several waterfalls are tearing down the hillside and filling up the ditch. It is flowing down to the culvert under the road like Niagara Falls.

Jeff was out in the rain digging new trenches across the driveway, trying to divert the rain from slicing new trenches through our gravel, but it seems the water took its own path.

The power flickered here, but it looks like there are outages all over the province, and the roads are flooding all over.

And now it’s raining again!

I love weather :-)

I MISSED THE WHOLE THING!!!

Weather, ,

The talk of the town province this morning is all about the huge thunderstorm last night.

Went on for 4 hours. Power is out. Trees are down. >50,000 customers lost their power over night in Nova Scotia.

Apparently the rain came down in sheets, then hard as hail, and there was sheet lightning, and chain lighting, and bolts of lightning.

But I didn’t hear a thing.

I was sleepin’ like a dead fish.

The web cam took 125 pictures over night. They all look like it was daylight out – so every time there was a good flash of lightning, it took a picture. Here are a selection of them (notice the time in the corner of the photos). You can actually see a lightning bolt in the first one:

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Lighting storm - June 2, 2011

Big Island…. is an island again

PhotoBlog, Weather, , ,

Back in August 2009, one of our weekend wanderings brought us to Big Island, Nova Scotia.

Big Island is located northwest of here, in Pictou county, on the Northumberland Strait. You can drive to the island because it is connected to the main land with a long sandy causeway, armed on one side with a breakwall of wood and rocks.

You can see Big Island straight again in these photos we took:

Big Island

Big Island

Well I guess those rocks were no deterrent to last night’s storm surge because this is what that same area looks like today (photo source):

Big Island

See more photos here: Pictou County’s only way to Big Island washed away in storm surge

There are several homes on the island and the residents are stranded for now. The road is completely washed away in one spot, and the telephone cable along the causeway was destroyed.

We’ve weathered this last storm fairly well. There wasn’t as much rain as they called for, and although the wind gusts were from the north this time, there wasn’t any damage here. We lost power for a few hours on Monday after work, but we’ve been fine since then. This storm is continuing into tomorrow – Thursday! The biggest problem is all the flooding in the Northumberland Strait from the high tide, full moon, and storm surge combination.

Read more about the damage and Big Island:
Stranded: Residents along shore cut off by storm surge (The News)
Storm surge washes out Big Island Road (CBC)

Third week in a row, a major rain & wind storm is approaching

Weather, , , , ,

We currently have a wind warning, a rainfall warning, and a storm surge warning in effect.

“High water levels and pounding surf will give local flooding along the coast beginning Tuesday afternoon.”

“Northeasterly winds gusting to 90 km/h expected to develop overnight and persist on Tuesday.”

“Rainfall amounts of 35 to 70 millimetres expected by Tuesday evening.”

We had snow covered grass since Friday afternoon. The plows were even out on Friday! We’re cutting it close now, but the forecast still shows a chance of flurries before Christmas.

Usually all of our storms have southern winds, but this one that is approaching now is a Nor’Easter. Nova Scotia Power crews must be rackin’ up the overtime this month!!

Chance of a dry boring weekend: 0.0%

General, , ,

The latest on our weekend forecast:

“The Red Cross is advising people — especially those in flood-prone areas — to be prepared for severe weather heading for Atlantic Canada.

Bill Lawlor, director of disaster management in Atlantic Canada, says the Red Cross is ready to mobilize volunteers to go where they are needed.

A good soaking from the remnants of tropical storm Hanna is part of a wet weather triple-header forecast for the region this weekend.

The first system is moving in Saturday ahead of Hanna, the second will come from Hanna on Sunday, and the third involves a system moving in from the west.

By the time it’s all over on Monday, the region could see upwards of 50 to 90 millimetres of rain.

Lawlor says strong winds are also expected, so people should secure lawn furniture and other loose objects in their yard that could become flying debris.”