Weather!

[rstevenson]

WOW 10mm (4") of Ice build-up from one storm? isn't that how galciers are born?

But that's lots to slide around on.

Rob

[BMAONE23]

mm cm only a factor of 10
though that is sufficient to crash a lander on Mars

[Ann]

How are you doing in the United States and Canada? I heard something about some very strange and partly terrible weather there.

Ann

[rstevenson]

How are you doing in the United States and Canada? I heard something about some very strange and partly terrible weather there.

Depends where you are. Here along the Atlantic coast, we've just had rain, but further inland, and for almost 2000 km to the north and west, they're having a harder go of it. Here's a couple of images from Toronto...

At the moment there are about a quarter million homes without power in Ontario (including several in my extended family.) Many of them will still not have power over the Christmas holiday. And now it's getting colder... .

Rob

[rstevenson]

Update...

Seven days on there are still about 23,000 customers without power in Toronto, and more elsewhere. One startling statistic: Toronto has lost about 20% of its tree canopy to the ice -- a fact which is, of course, connected to the extensive power outage. If there weren't so many nice old trees hanging over the power lines, there wouldn't have been so many lines coming down in the storm. But the real problem is that the lines are almost all above ground. In newer subdivisions power lines are below ground, but most of the city's power grid is exposed to the elements.

Rob

[orin stepanek]

What a turnaround; yesterday was in the upper 50's; today it is 3F, with high to be around 17F!

[Beyond]

I didn't realize that New England weather went so far west.

[Ann]

Update...

Seven days on there are still about 23,000 customers without power in Toronto, and more elsewhere. One startling statistic: Toronto has lost about 20% of its tree canopy to the ice -- a fact which is, of course, connected to the extensive power outage. If there weren't so many nice old trees hanging over the power lines, there wouldn't have been so many lines coming down in the storm. But the real problem is that the lines are almost all above ground. In newer subdivisions power lines are below ground, but most of the city's power grid is exposed to the elements.

Rob

Sorry to hear about the loss of all those trees, Rob. I love trees. Of course I sympathize with all those people who have been without power for a week. Here in Malmö, our power grid is is all below ground, so we rarely have power outages and hardly ever any lengthy ones.

Ann

[Beyond]

Had a two hour power outage from rain. Now it's past and going north to make mischief in Canada.

[Nitpicker]

Nothing quite as destructive as what Rob has reported in Toronto, but South East Queensland has seen a few impressive electrical storms in the last week or so:

Looking southward from the Sunshine Coast, 29-Dec-2013 at 21:39+10

The local weather service estimated that the above storm included 25,000 lightning strikes and caused several blackouts (including at our place later in the night, but only for 3 hours). Sadly, there was also a fatal lightning strike a few days earlier, near Fraser Island.

[geckzilla]

The shoveling is done and my fingers are warm but I'm finding it funny at how much resistance my keyboard keys are offering my fingers. Tired!

[Chris Peterson]

The shoveling is done and my fingers are warm but I'm finding it funny at how much resistance my keyboard keys are offering my fingers. Tired! :D

If you're not tired enough, you can come visit here after our next storm. I have about 500 meters of paths and trails that I shovel, in addition to another kilometer or so that I plow with a tractor (which is surprisingly hard work when it's 5°F).

[geckzilla]

Haha, at least with all the open space you have plenty of room to put the snow. I was picking each shovel full of snow up and walking ten feet over to dump it in the garden between the paths leading to the houses. Sometimes we simply bury the car parked on the street but this time we were nice and it can escape if the owner needs it to.

[Chris Peterson]

Haha, at least with all the open space you have plenty of room to put the snow. I was picking each shovel full of snow up and walking ten feet over to dump it in the garden between the paths leading to the houses.

Yeah, just shoveling it to the side isn't too hard. Also, our mountain snow is super light powder. Sometimes a broom is the best way to get rid of it, and a full shovel doesn't weigh any more than an empty one. But drift snow is a different story, weighing about the same as concrete...

[geckzilla]

Today's snow was good for shoveling. Not so fluffy that it disintegrated but not so wet that it was a heavy slurry or that hard concrete stuff.

Here's four photos stitched together quickly. As you can see, everyone but the neighbors adjacent to me on the right have contributed to the effort in this photo. That's strange because earlier this year they were scrubbing their backyard concrete in an unusually fastidious manner on a weekly basis. The snow was about a foot deep just behind our car but it was around half a foot elsewhere and even less in places which were not sheltered from the wind. Late last night I looked out the window and noticed there were tiny sculpted snow dunes in places.

You should go out and take a panorama of your work next time, Chris.

[rstevenson]

That same storm is still hitting us. I may get out to shovel tonight, or maybe not 'til morning. It's been unusually cold, making the snow lighter than we normally get, so the shovelling won't be too bad.

For scale, the top of that rock wall you can see on either side of the far steps is about 3' high.

Rob

[geckzilla]

I feel that you could be posting the same photo you did last year with the same explanation, Rob. Your rock wall is buried again. The snow is deceptively shallow looking in the photographs. We need to throw cats or small dogs into it for some scale reference.

[rstevenson]

Yeah, we get one of these in too many years. I prefer the winter we had a few years back, where the shovel almost rusted waiting to be used, and the broom was able to cope most of the time. If I ever win a lottery, I will never again see snow, except in pictures. That's where it is best appreciated.

Rob

[neufer]

• The Winter's Tale Act 4, Scene 4

AUTOLYCUS: Lawn as white as driven snow;
..............................................................................

• King Richard II Act 1, Scene 3

HENRY BOLINGBROKE: O, who can hold a fire in his hand

• By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
  Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
  By bare imagination of a feast?
  Or wallow naked in December snow
  By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

• Act 4, Scene 1

KING RICHARD II: O that I were a mockery king of snow,

• Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
  To melt myself away in water-drops!

[Nitpicker]

Glad we have no snow to shovel here. Today, we're expecting a rare heatwave of 41°C or 106°F, which is simply too hot to do anything, especially with humidity.

[geckzilla]

Days like that you just wanna dig a little rut under a bush and cover your forearms in special saliva.

[neufer]

Days like that you just wanna dig a little rut under a bush and cover your forearms in special saliva.

• Not that it would save you.

[b][color=#0000FF][size=135]Hoplodactylus delcourti of Marseille[/size][/color][/b]

---

<<The kawekaweau or Delcourt's giant gecko, Hoplodactylus delcourti, was by far the largest of all geckos with a snout-to-vent length of 37 cm and an overall length of at least 60 cm. It was endemic to New Zealand, and is now believed to be extinct.

In 1870, a Māori chief killed a kawekaweau he found under the bark of a dead rata tree in the forests of the Waimana Valley. This is the only documented report of anyone ever seeing one of these animals alive. He described it as being "brownish with reddish stripes and as thick as a man's wrist". A single stuffed museum specimen was "discovered" forgotten in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Marseille by French museum worker Alain Delcourt in 1986; however, the origins and date of collection of the specimen remain a mystery, as when it was found, it was not labelled. Scientists examining it eventually concluded it was from New Zealand and was in fact the lost "kawekaweau", a giant and mysterious forest lizard of Maori oral tradition.>>

[BMAONE23]

• The Winter's Tale Act 4, Scene 4

AUTOLYCUS: Lawn as white as driven snow;
..............................................................................

• King Richard II Act 1, Scene 3

HENRY BOLINGBROKE: O, who can hold a fire in his hand

• By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
  Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
  By bare imagination of a feast?
  Or wallow naked in December snow
  By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

• Act 4, Scene 1

KING RICHARD II: O that I were a mockery king of snow,

• Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
  To melt myself away in water-drops!

Obviously trying to BARDer your way through Winter Weather

[Nitpicker]

Days like that you just wanna dig a little rut under a bush and cover your forearms in special saliva.

Um, yeah, we call that swimming in the pool under the shady palms.

I just saw a kookaburra catch and eat a lizard (either a gecko or a big skink) next to our pool!

[rstevenson]

Looks like the snow has stopped falling here, but the wind is still drifting it around. I'll get the steps shovelled tonight, but not the driveway. I may have to employ help for that -- a combination of too many years on this planet and an ill-timed virus. No delay is allowed, since the temperature is going up to zero Sunday and to +8°C Monday!

I hate winter!

Rob