Tag Archives: weather

Driving? No thanks

What I've Been Up To, , ,

feb4

Every school is closed around here, except mine.  The faculty are on strike so there are no classes anyway, but I’m not risking life and limb to get there.

Jeff headed out to Sherbrooke before 7, but turned around after meeting his employees at the end of the lake. They said the roads their way were really bad and our highway isn’t cleared, so he closed his office for a couple hours to reassess.

We got about 4 inches of fluffy snow yesterday.  When the snow turned to steady rain last evening – rain that was freezing to everything – Jeff plowed the driveway and I cleaned off the vehicles and moved them so he could clear the snow.  I got up at 6am and it looked the same out side, but the gutters were flowing with heavy water and then the meatball-sized snowball started falling from the sky.  It is accumulating quickly and the wind is picking up. Haven’t seen a plow this morning.  I emailed in to work and said I was taking a personal day (we get 5/year).

The snow keeps sticking to the satellite dish so no TV watching either!

Update 10:00am – Plow went by! Jeff closed his office for the day.  Garbage collection is cancelled so now we’re debating who is going to go bring the garbage back up.

Update 12:53pm – Winds gusting to 80km/hr, white outs, snowing, accidents everywhere, everything closed, RCMP telling people to stay off the roads, and just now my employer decides to close for 1pm and send everyone home.

Life is full of firsts

Weather,

Even at 37 years old now, life is still full of firsts.

For instance, this is the first time I have ever seen this:

fulloffirsts

Both a Rainfall Warning and a Blizzard Warning!

Warnings

Antigonish County
4:57 AM AST Sunday 03 February 2013
Rainfall warning for
Antigonish County issued

20 to 40 millimetres of rain expected tonight and Monday morning.

This is a warning that significant rainfall is expected or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..listen for updated statements.

A low pressure system will develop southwest of Nova Scotia today and will intensify rapidly tonight. It will still continue to intensify Monday as it moves over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Snow at times heavy will develop this afternoon and evening through central eastern and northern sections of Nova Scotia. Over Eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton the snow will change to rain at times heavy this evening mixed at times with freezing rain. The rain will change back to snow during the day Monday as very strong northwesterlies develop and bring back colder temperatures. Blizzard conditions can be expected Monday afternoon and evening in Antigonish County and the Cape Breton Highlands.

Antigonish County
4:57 AM AST Sunday 03 February 2013
Blizzard warning for
Antigonish County issued

Blizzard conditions expected Monday afternoon and evening with snow blowing snow and winds gusting to 100 km/h.

This is a warning that blizzard conditions with near-zero visibilities are expected or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..listen for updated statements.

A low pressure system will develop southwest of Nova Scotia today and will intensify rapidly tonight. It will still continue to intensify Monday as it moves over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Snow at times heavy will develop this afternoon and evening through central eastern and northern sections of Nova Scotia. Over Eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton the snow will change to rain at times heavy this evening mixed at times with freezing rain. The rain will change back to snow during the day Monday as very strong northwesterlies develop and bring back colder temperatures. Blizzard conditions can be expected Monday afternoon and evening in Antigonish County and the Cape Breton Highlands.

Stay tuned…

Snowfall, sunset, longer days, January, cold lungs

PhotoBlog, , ,

We had a great snowfall overnight! Big fluffy flakes that piled up fast!

I headed back to work this morning after a GREAT Christmas break. Instead of lying in bed for an hour after the alarm went off, we sprung up at 6 to deal with the snow and get ready for work.

Jeff plowing

Jeff plowing

Snow was still coming down

Snow was still coming down

While Jeff plowed, I got the fire going, and then cleaned off our vehicles and moved them out of the way

While Jeff plowed, I got the fire going, and then cleaned off our vehicles and moved them out of the way

Made it up the driveway after work, no problem!

Made it up the driveway after work, no problem!

IMG_0874

It is really nice to drive home without headlights! The daylight is noticeably longer in January. Here’s a pic of the sunset I took with my iPhone as I got out of the car.

IMG_0876

And here it is from down by the road. I wasn’t sure how slippery the driveway would be so I didn’t want to stop for the mail and compost bin in the car.  The lake is frozen from our place north. This photo shows the edge of the ice.

 

Then walked back down for the compost bin and mail

-12 C is cold on my lungs while walking up that mountain of a driveway!

Water update, and we’re blindly facing the hurricanes now!

What I've Been Up To, ,

With Dad’s help and after a chat with a plumber, we’re a bit closer to diagnosing our water woes.  Our first discovery was that the pressure gauge is frozen at 30 psi so we can’t tell at what pressure the well pump is kicking in.

I picked up a new gauge yesterday and Jeff installed it.  Now we know the well pump is kicking in at 26 psi and shutting off at 50 psi.  The plumber said it is supposed to kick in at 30 psi.  If that is the only problem, 4 psi too low is really making for an awful shower this week when the pressure goes down. There isn’t enough water to wash the soap off. Maybe 26 psi isn’t enough pressure to pump the water up 2 stories.

The next step is cleaning out a clean up near the pressure valve to see if that will do it. And then I guess we find out how to reset it back to 30 psi.

So hopefully there is no major repair or parts to replace.

And in other news….

Did you hear the U.S. weather satellite that tracks hurricanes in the Atlantic ocean is broken?

That satellite cost $500 million when it was launched in 2006. It wasn’t used regularly for weather monitoring until 2010.  On Friday engineers shut it down because of vibrations and are still working on diagnosing the problem.  I guess they can’t just send out a technician to a fix it up, eh?

Meteorologists are using a spare satellite and using a European satellite for their Atlantic coast forecasts.  They said there may be a slight decrease in the accuracy of weather forecasts and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are checking to see if this is going to affect hurricane forecasting.

Ahhh!!

Do I do it?

Weather, , ,

Do I comment on the weather?
But everyone ELSE is commenting on the weather!
But I’m getting old and a year or two from now I might not remember this!
OK this post is for my future self only.
Don’t read. It’s repetitive to everything you already know.

Why it is a weird day:

  • It is March 21, 2012 and I’m in shorts and a tank top.
  • It was 25 here when I got home from work.
  • The lake is all thawed in front of our place.
  • I can smell a skunk.
  • I just did the spring poop cleanup of the backyard.
  • While I was doing so, I got bit by a mosquito.
  • I’m looking at photos of daffodils and crocuses from my friends and family in Ontario.
  • My spring flowers are smart enough to be sound asleep under the soil.
  • So far.
  • Did I mentioned I am wearing flip flops?
  • I haven’t had to start a fire in a couple of days.

There. Now next year when there is another ice dam on the roof and the snow is still up to my collarbone, and we have no where left to shovel the snow, I can wonder if I was joking when I wrote this post.

Had to chisel out this morning

What I've Been Up To, , ,

We had freezing rain over night and a bit of snow/ice pellets.

It reminded me of living in Sault Ste. Marie where we often had to chisel out our windshields after the work day and how lucky I was to have a garage.

So Jeff’s new truck is all registered, insured, and now has its 2 year safety sticker. It is such a nice truck. Every bell and whistle you could hope for. Except coming when you whistle.

His old truck has sparked a few emails and phone calls but no sale yet. We were sure it would sell easily because it has 1.5 years left on its safety, but then Jeff found out the government here requires the safety to be valid within 30 days of a sale. Of course they do. Of course. This province has both hands in our pockets at all times. There may be an as-is/where-is option Jeff is exploring. It might not take much to safety, but why does he want to go to the expense when the truck is already likely to sell for so little?

A possible 5-10 cm of snow coming tonight and possibly again tomorrow.

I don’t mind it one bit. Winter is so sparse here – so easy. We don’t have to be in such a big hurry for spring. Although Jeff would really like to be on the lake fishing at the beginning of April like we were a couple years ago.

The weather is never disappointing here

Weather, ,

Evidence that the weather here never disappoints:

  • It started to snow heavy last evening and quickly we had a few inches everywhere.
  • Jeff plowed the driveway at 4am while I shoveled the deck and cleaned off our vehicles so he could get to the airport. It started to lightly rain while we were outside.
  • During my work day it warmed up, much of the snow melted, and the fog grew thick. People on the news tonight were saying it is the thickest fog they’ve ever seen. Now I heard the east coast folk knew fog, but this certainly isn’t the thickest fog I’ve ever seen, but it IS ominous at any rate.
  • Tonight the entire province of Nova Scotia has a wind warning. Gusts of 100 km/hr are supposedly on the way, even though it is completely calm out there now at 7:10pm
  • There may be thunderstorms over night.
  • By Sunday it will be -12°C

Awesome!

Jeff is in Ontario. I will be having a quiet weekend at home. I’ve got many things to do, and hopefully one of them won’t be chasing the roof in the wind tonight.

Monty is pining away at the door for Jeff. He thinks Jeff should be home by now. He is usually a little extra whiny for the first day or two after Jeff leaves.

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!

–

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

–

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.

–
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.

Weather watching

Weather, , ,

Just before 10am here and we’re getting rain mixed with ice pellets.
100km/hr winds on the way for later today.

My view at 9:57am

I’m thinking we need to cut our lawn again before winter. Look at that tall messy grass!

Update. 11:50am
Jeff noticed the top run of our eavestroph is clogged up so the water is pouring over the edge. It just had to be the top run, eh? The one that is too high to reach with the ladder? Speaking of which, Jeff found a company that will install a heat cable across the back of that roof where we had that bad ice damn last year, but they want to charge us at least $600 and they want an electrician to install an outlet under the eaves. Ouch. Living in a two-storey house has extra costs when you can’t easily get to your roof.

Update. 1:43pm
Just got a fire started to warm it up a bit in here. It’s a really cold rain and the wind is from the north. The power flicked once. There is flooding in Peggy’s Cove and on the Halifax waterfront.

Update: 6:53pm
Crazy windy here. Power outages all over the province.

Update: 11:03pm
Kept our power! Some good brownouts, but not enough to interrupt Sunday’s Amazing Race or The Walking Dead. It sounds like the wind is dying down now. Now the snow is supposed to start by morning I think.

Next morning:
11,888 customers of Nova Scotia Power are still without power this morning, and we ARE NOT one of them! Woo hoo! We weathered another storm. The rivers are high and swollen this morning. It is +3 this morning and snowing a bit in town. Won’t be long until the studded tires have to go on!