North American Weather (U.S.A & Canada)

[Dorsetbred]

Drop of the white stuff this morning Coopsy, doesn't look a lot as the sun has already done it's work on most of it..?

[Coopsy]

2 hours ago, Dorsetbred said:

Drop of the white stuff this morning Coopsy, doesn't look a lot as the sun has already done it's work on most of it..?

Yeah a little bit. The snows staying in the shade as it’s close to freezing but in the sun it’s mostly long gone. Some good northern lights this week though. 

[Dorsetbred]

Big Sky has falling snow and the Piste Basher is out..

[Coopsy]

Not much to report on weather wise but lots of disruption due to filming in town. Sets going up downtown and in various locations like the engine bridge (river trail). HBO are in town filming for their new series ‘The Last of Us’ which is due out next year. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Coopsy

[A Face like Thunder]

'Once in 100 years' storm causing massive damage in Canada. #bcstorm

[Roger J Smith]

Persistent heavy rainfall over southwestern BC from Saturday to Monday (13th-15th) created widespread flooding and mudslides with massive debris flows coming out of the hills on either side of the lower Fraser valley, and further inland into more mountainous areas too. 

All of the highways connecting Vancouver to the interior of BC and Alberta have been closed to traffic and in one case a long stretch has been washed away entirely. I will try to summarize this in a way that will make sense to readers not familiar with BC geography, if you are familiar, bear with me (actually three bears at one point this year, let's not go there) ...

In Vancouver and nearby cities, flooding was moderate and not unprecedented, late fall and winter are often very wet in this climate, and urban flooding is an annual event. Further east into the Fraser valley, the flooding was more unusual in severity. Large sections of Abbotsford and Chiiliwack BC were hit by floods and mudslides requiring multiple evacuations. The main highway east is a freeway, the Trans-Canada or Highway 1 as generally known -- this was cut off in two areas by flooding and mudslides. The onset was gradual and roads were closed before anyone could be trapped there. A second highway (BC 7) runs east on the north side of the Fraser. This one was cut in three places by mudslides with people trapped in between them, eventually rescued either by road being cleared near Hope, or by helicopter further west where those slides look like being a one to two week cleanup challenge. 

Northeast of Hope (on the Fraser where it comes out of the mountains and the Fraser canyon), the extension of the Trans-Canada (the Coquihalla Highway) was cut by a flood that washed out a quarter mile stretch of the westbound lanes. The eastbound lanes look unstable but intact, so some limited traffic may resume there eventually. A second route east from Hope to Princeton BC was cut off in several places also, and the town of Princeton has some flooding, but worse floods hit Merritt further along the Coquihalla highway, a small city of about 8,000 residents which is fully evacuated. And in the Fraser Canyon, there are highway closures from washouts south of that town that was burned out in the summer heat wave (Lytton BC). 

In all of those cases, no known casualties although some debris yet to be fully searched. By now the rain has stopped but floods will recede rather slowly as water continues to pour out of higher terrain. 

A worse situation then developed on Highway 99 which connects Vancouver to Whistler, Pemberton and Lillooet. Between Pemberton and Lillooet, several slides happened at different times, people being trapped between them and then in one case apparently hit by a later slide with unknown results. A TV news photographer was in that area returning from his cabin at the end of the weekend, and was an eye-witness to this, narrowly escaping death himself. He thinks many of those people may have lost their lives but search and rescue have to get through one slide to search this second one and the terrain is very rugged (this would be approximately 150 miles northeast of Vancouver).

The final act of this storm was to create strong winds, a barge broke loose in the approach to Vancouver harbour and drifted onto a rocky shoreline near the downtown area threatening to ram into a bridge although it came into land short of hitting that. Later these strong winds blew down trees around parts of the Okanagan valley near Kelowna BC

Meanwhile, southern Alberta had a chinook warming to 15 C with strong southwest winds, followed by a blast of cold air and snow hitting now in some parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The low actually deepened after moving inland which is unusual. It reached about 970 mbs north of Banff Alberta and is now at about 980 mbs in central SK.

[Coopsy]

As Roger has alluded to snow has hit parts of Alberta hard over the last few days. Road closures on main highway from Radium to Banff as well as local ones. Here’s some totals:

It mainly hit hard west and north of Canmore, with Lake Louise looking like the sweet spot...

Banff did OK from it too...

 

[cheeky_monkey]

2 hours ago, Coopsy said:

As Roger has alluded to snow has hit parts of Alberta hard over the last few days. Road closures on main highway from Radium to Banff as well as local ones. Here’s some totals:

It mainly hit hard west and north of Canmore, with Lake Louise looking like the sweet spot...

Banff did OK from it too...

 

was real sheet day in Edmonton yesterday..took me over 2 hours to get to the airport to fly to Vancouver (normally its 20 mins)..did not see one snow plough or gritter on any roads..at this point it had been snowing for nearly 24hrs.

[Roger J Smith]

For those reading this in N America we will have a total eclipse of the Moon Thursday night that I am hoping to see here although a lot of cloud is likely to the south at least, the further north you are the more likely you will have clear skies at the right time, which is about midnight in the Pacific time zone and 0100h in the Mountain time zone (to avoid confusion I mean 0100h Friday 19th but basically late Thursday evening for planning purposes). This is more or less a total eclipse but 97% in the umbra, 3% (near the moon's north pole) in the penumbra, so at totality it should look like the usual darkened lunar sphere with a bright spot at that north polar area, and this will reveal that the earth-moon system are tilted diagonally because I don't think the north pole will be at the top of the sphere but more like at about the one o'clock position. By eclipse time the Moon will be almost overhead, we are at a point in the 18.6 year declination cycle now where the winter full moons are riding higher than the summer sun, although with this being November the moon would appear even closer to the zenith the next two nights. The December full moon will be especially high with a declination of about 26 deg, the maximum of 29 occurs in the winter of 2024-25. Those facts are true for all readers by the way, it's just the timing of the eclipse which will prevent it from being any kind of a spectacle in Europe although I think in northern Scotland they might have a chance to see the start of the eclipse around sunrise, with the moon setting in the northwest at that point. In England with the earlier sunrise it would probably be too far into the daylight to notice any changes on the pale setting moon if that were even visible, you'd need clear skies and a low horizon to the west-northwest. 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Roger J Smith

[matty40s]

 

[Roger J Smith]

That area was originally swamp and lake and reclaimed for intensive agriculture years ago. Part of the problem was that the Nooksack River which flows out of the Mount Baker area through northern WA state into Puget Sound near Bellingham WA, was blocked by a mudslide and temporarily diverted through the very flat country between the two rivers (Fraser and Nooksack) which overflowed all the drainage canals in the region. The Nooksack was returned to its proper channel on Monday so that the problem now is to pump all the excess water out of the flat areas back into the Fraser River. Although there are mountains on either side of the Fraser valley once you're east of Abbotsford, the valley itself is quite flat as far inland as ten miles east of Chiiliwack, then it becomes a lot narrower and the highways are between the Fraser River and steep bluffs which is where all the mudslide problems occurred. 

The province of BC has declared a state of emergency and there's a run on groceries in many food stores even well outside of the affected areas because people fear a breakdown in the supply chain as a result of all the highway damage. We are used to 12-hour highway shutdowns in storms around the province but a week to two-week closure will cut off many places from supply chains. The main railroad link was also blocked in the Fraser canyon. 

 

[Coopsy]

15 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

was real sheet day in Edmonton yesterday..took me over 2 hours to get to the airport to fly to Vancouver (normally its 20 mins)..did not see one snow plough or gritter on any roads..at this point it had been snowing for nearly 24hrs.

Yeah I bet it was. Not sure about you but I tend to find the ploughing is worse with bad storms early in the season. Whether it’s a budget thing who knows. 

[cheeky_monkey]

16 hours ago, Coopsy said:

Yeah I bet it was. Not sure about you but I tend to find the ploughing is worse with bad storms early in the season. Whether it’s a budget thing who knows. 

was the same coming back..driving to the Airport in Prince George at 5am this morning  ..been snowing all night..roads had no grit no snows ploughs to be seen..i struggled to get up the big hill going towards the airport easily a 1;10 hill for about 3miles this was in an AWD car with winter tyres

[matty40s]

 

[matty40s]

 

[Coopsy]

A cold crappy day in town at 5oC and raining. Rain due to transition over to snow late afternoon/early evening but accumulation looks unlikely. 

Lots of snow at the ski hill though...

Edited November 28, 2021 by Coopsy

[cheeky_monkey]

22 hours ago, Coopsy said:

A cold crappy day in town at 5oC and raining. Rain due to transition over to snow late afternoon/early evening but accumulation looks unlikely. 

Lots of snow at the ski hill though...

if you are looking forward to cold and lots of snow this is for you ...sucks for me though  (skip to the section about cold or extreme cold for Alberta this winter )

The Weather Network - Canada's 2022 Winter Forecast: Stormy and changeable season ahead

WWW.THEWEATHERNETWORK.COM

---

The Weather Network is forecasting a come-and-go winter for much of the country, with periods of high-impact weather for the season ahead.

 

[Coopsy]

On 29/11/2021 at 17:22, cheeky_monkey said:

if you are looking forward to cold and lots of snow this is for you ...sucks for me though  (skip to the section about cold or extreme cold for Alberta this winter )

The Weather Network - Canada's 2022 Winter Forecast: Stormy and changeable season ahead

WWW.THEWEATHERNETWORK.COM

---

The Weather Network is forecasting a come-and-go winter for much of the country, with periods of high-impact weather for the season ahead.

 

I was just reading this and then saw your message - extreme cold is never fun. It’s a bit similar to last years forecast with increased snowfall but from an active jet stream running through. But this time they seem to be expecting more upsloping snow, as they mentioned, coming from easterly winds.  You may end up with all cold and no snow again

[cheeky_monkey]

4 hours ago, Coopsy said:

I was just reading this and then saw your message - extreme cold is never fun. It’s a bit similar to last years forecast with increased snowfall but from an active jet stream running through. But this time they seem to be expecting more upsloping snow, as they mentioned, coming from easterly winds.  You may end up with all cold and no snow again

i got a feeling it could be a similar winter to 2010-11 which was cold and very snowy here in Edmonton..only difference it may start a month later into the season..that winter the cold and snow set in mid November 2010 and never really let up until mid/late April 2011

[Coopsy]

22 hours ago, CatchMyDrift said:

I'm glad to be home, especially when the forecast looks like this. Below freezing but extremely pleasant:

Welcome back!

It is starting to feel like winter now. Daytime highs due to be around minus 5 to minus 10 and nighttime lows might get down to minus 20 in Canmore.

Plenty of sun around mixed with snow showers in the next few days. 

[Coopsy]

Whiteout conditions at the moment. Snow accumulating quickly. If it carries on like this things could get interesting 

[Country roads]

Looks like many of you will be busy with the snow shovels 

[cheeky_monkey]

11 hours ago, Country roads said:

Looks like many of you will be busy with the snow shovels 

or just employ a snow removal company to do it for you..about $100/month for the season

[Coopsy]

17 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

or just employ a snow removal company to do it for you..about $100/month for the season

Or live next door to a retired neighbour who insists he does it for you (for a few beers).

16 hours ago, CatchMyDrift said:

Blue sky to die for today:

Gotta love Alberta in the winter. So bright. I notice how gloomy the UK is in the winter in comparison.

One of my fav spots in Canmore is a window seat at Craigs Waystation - great breakfast, coffee and view of those big skies over the mountains 

[cheeky_monkey]

weather is pretty grim here..came back from Vancouver last night to the third and worst ice storm in the last 3 weeks...roads and pavements coated in a thick glaze of ice ..i had to go out and buy a lot of de-icer and sand for my driveway and footpaths outside my house.