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Thread: Today's Weather Trivia

  1. #16
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    Big storm hits Alaska as weary residents dig out...

    Published: January 12, 2012 6:57 PM

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    Photo credit: Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management | A man stands on a porch roof of a house buried in snow in Cordova, Alaska. (Jan. 7, 2012)

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The worst winter anyone can remember in Alaska has piled snow so high people can't see out the windows, kept a tanker in ice-choked waters from delivering fuel on time and turned snow-packed roofs into sled runs.

    While most of the nation has gone without much seasonal snow, the state already known for winter is buried in weather that has dumped more than twice as much snow as usual on its largest city, brought out the National Guard and put a run on snow shovels.

    As a Russian tanker crawled toward the iced-in coastal community of Nome to bring in much-needed fuel, weather-weary Alaskans awoke Thursday to more of the white stuff — more than a foot was expected to fall in Anchorage — and said enough was enough.

    "The scary part is, we still have three more months to go," said Kathryn Hawkins, a veterinarian who lives in the coastal community of Valdez, about 100 miles southeast of Anchorage. "I look out and go, 'Oh my gosh, where can it all go?'"

    The city has seen more than 26 feet of snowfall since November. Snow is piled 8 feet high outside Hawkins' home and she can't see out the front or back of her house. Her 12-year-old son has been sliding off the roof into the yard.

    In the nearby fishing community of Cordova, the Alaska National Guard is out helping clear snow from streets and roofs. The city already been buried under 172 inches of snow since November; snow began falling again after midnight Wednesday.

    "You actually get to a point where it almost becomes it's expected, that it's going to be snowing," said Teresa Benson, a Cordova resident and district manager for the National Forest Service.

    The city is struggling with a place to put the snow that has already fallen before dealing with more. Front-end loaders are taking scoop after scoop of snow from large dump piles to a snow-melting machine.

    "That's our big issue, getting our snow dumps cleared for the next barrage of snow," Cordova spokesman Allen Marquette said.

    More than 186 inches of snow has fallen in Cordova this season, including 59 inches for the first 10 days of January alone, according to the National Weather Service. The seasonal record of 221.5 inches was set in 1955-56.

    Anchorage had 81.6 inches fall as of Wednesday — more than twice the average snowfall of 30.1 inches for the same time period. The weather service counts July 1 through the end of June as a snow season.

    This year's total already broke the record 77.3 inches that fell during the same time period in the 1993-94 season, and another 3 inches has fallen since midnight Wednesday. If it keeps up, Anchorage is on track to have the snowiest winter ever, surpassing the previous record of 132.8 inches in 1954-55.

    The massive snowfall is the result of two atmospheric patterns "that are conspiring to send an unending series of storms into Alaska," said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who runs Weather Underground, a meteorology service that tracks strange and extreme weather.

    For the second winter in a row, the Pacific weather phenomenon known as La Nina is affecting the weather. But instead of plentiful snow in the Lower 48, Alaska is getting slammed because of a second weather pattern. That's called the Arctic Oscillation and it has been strong this year, changing air patterns to the south and keeping the coldest winter air locked up in the Arctic.

    "Alaska is definitely getting the big dump," said Bill Patzert, a climate expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

    Many of the lower 48 states have seen an unusually mild start to the winter. A storm dumped several inches of snow on northwestern Wisconsin and western Iowa before moving eastward and to start blanketing Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago, which was expected to get up to 8 inches by Friday morning.

    In the ice-choked frozen waters of the Bering Sea, a Russian tanker loaded with 1.3 million gallons of fuel is progressing steadily toward Nome, following the path being painstakingly plowed by a Coast Guard icebreaker. Thick ice, wind and unfavorable ocean currents had initially slowed the vessel's progress, but as of 2 p.m. Thursday the tanker and the icebreaker were 46 miles from Nome and likely to arrive Friday, said Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley.

    The city missed its final pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a big storm swept the region last fall. Without the delivery, Nome could run short of fuel before another barge arrives in late spring. That's raised the specter of climbing gas prices — up to $9 a gallon if fuel has to be flown in. Gasoline was selling for $5.43 on Thursday.

    The weather has put a strain on the state, which estimates the cost of paying for guard members in Cordova, heavy equipment, fuel and other costs at $775,000, said emergency management spokesman Jeremy Zidek.

    In Anchorage, schools were open Thursday, but some school bus routes were canceled because of whiteout driving conditions.

    "I think people were girding their loins for a long winter," said Anchorage police Lt. Dave Parker. He hasn't seen an upsurge of crime, but "by the end of March, there might be a few frustrated people."

    In Cordova, shovel-makers were making emergency shipments to help out. There are plenty of standard shovels around town, but they're lacking a version with a scoop that can push a cubic foot of snow or better at a time.

    The new shovels cost about $50 each, and the city is paying for them with emergency funds.

    The Yukon ergo sleigh shovels, with a 26-inch scoop, have a huge advantage over regular shovels. "Trying to lift snow all day with those is pretty backbreaking," city spokesman Tim Joyce said.

    "We have the National Guard right now using the standard shovel, and they're getting pretty trashed everyday — not the shovels but the Guardsmen themselves," he said.

    The warmer temperatures — about 35 degrees midday Wednesday — brought another hazard to the Prince William Sound community of 2,200 people: avalanche danger.

    There's one road leading out, and it was closed though it could be opened for emergency vehicles.

    The city also is warning people not to stand under the eaves of their houses to clear snow off the roof: "There's a real high potential that if it does slide, they'd be buried," Joyce said.

    The snow has damaged four commercial buildings and two homes and evacuated a 24-unit apartment complex in Cordova.

    The current storm system is expected to be gone by Friday, but it was also expected to get much colder. "So all this wet stuff will turn very, very hard and that's going to make it more difficult to shovel," Marquette said.

    Meteorologists say high temperatures this weekend should top out from zero to 5 degrees, with lows of about 10 below.

    If there's one fan of the snow in Valdez, it's 12-year-old Trevor, Kathryn Hawkins' son. School is out and the snow is piled so high on the roof that he's been sliding off of it into the yard.

    "When it first started snowing, he said, 'More, more, more snow,' and I'm like, 'Will you stop it? We've had enough.'" Hawkins said.

    "And that was before all this came. He said, 'I want to slide off the roof again,'" she said.

    "And now he can, to his heart's content."
    Last edited by henric; 05-05-2012 at 10:20 PM.


    "My sunshine doesn't come from the skies,
    It comes from the love in my dog's eyes."

  2. #17
    pandr Guest

    Default May 6th 2012

    May 6th 2010

    The combination of heavy snows and high winds led to the death of 40 horses during a violent stampede near Fort MacLeod, AB. The foul weather caused the herd to huddle and panic, trampelling smaller horses and pushing others against barbed wire fences. Ranchers lost up to 15% of their calves, either trampled in fields or drowned in dugouts trying to flee blizzards

  3. #18
    pandr Guest

    Default May 7th 2012

    May 7th 2001

    Heavy pack ice kept more than 3000 fishers from catching crab and lobster along the Newfoundland coast. Because of the ice, sealers stayed onshore, and because of this, officials decided to extend the hunt off the north east coast for an extra two weeks. Ice conditrions around Newfoundland and the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence were said to be the worst in years.

  4. #19
    pandr Guest

    Default May 8th 2012

    May 8th 1901

    At noon, lightning struck the Bullock School, about 8 km from Beebe-Plain, QC. The teacher was at dinner and escaped. About a dozen people in the building were all more or less injured. Two girls who were sitting together had their hair burned and their shoes torn from their feet. They remained unconscious and paralyzed in their lower limbs for some time.

  5. #20
    pandr Guest

    Default May 9th 2012

    May 9th 2010

    After three seasons devoid of percipitation, water levels in many Ontario and Quebec rivers and lakes were their lowest in decades. With water down more than 1 metre, docks were useles and beaches were mostly mud, stumps and rocks. Riviere des Mille Iles, QC, recorded it's lowest water level ever, prompting the mayor of Rosemere QC, to say that "you could walk on it".

  6. #21
    pandr Guest

    Default May 10th 2012

    May 12th 2004

    For drivers in Amherstburg, ON, it was a scene right out of a horror movie. About 20 dead and 12 injured seagulls littered the ground near River Canard. Amherstburg police figured the birds died during an overnight storm, possibly as the result of a lightning strike. One motorist said when she saw the birds it was a frightful and horrible scene.

  7. #22
    pandr Guest

    Default May 11th 2012

    May 11th 2004

    A wicked Colorado storm dumped mounds of wet snow from Calgary, AB, to Kenora, ON. Farmers welcomed the moisture, but for weary city folk, it was like winter all over again. Snowplows were brought out of storage to clear blocked city streets. The long line-ups of deserted cars and trucks on the Trans-Canada Highway for about 2 days cost the Canadian transportation sector millions of dollars.

  8. #23
    pandr Guest

    Default May 12th 2012

    May 12th 1938

    In Alberta, 120-km/h winds packed with snow and soil swept through Edmonton, disrupting communications and inflicting extensive damage. In Calgary, a solid wall of dirt blotted out the sun. Rain, lighter winds, and then heavy, wet snow followed, but shortly after 7:00 PM, a huge rainbow appeared. Old-timers could not remember a dust storm arriving so suddenly without warning.

  9. #24
    pandr Guest

    Default May 13th 2012

    May 13th 1986

    Calgarians slopped and even skied their way through a May blizzard that dropped more than 30 cm of snow over 2 days. Strong winds of 80 km/h toppled trees and power lines. An hour before, the sun had been shining and temperatures had soared to 15°C. Alberta's Transportation Minister called it the worst spring storm in history.

  10. #25
    pandr Guest

    Default May 14th 2012

    May 14th 2009

    The Victoria Day long weekend was one of the chilliest in Yellowknife, NT's weather history. The city saw a record low of -9.6°C. On the same weekend, Aklavik, NT, reached temperatures as high as 18.3°C, leaving Yellowknife residents wondering when summer would make its way south. Yellowknife campers toughed out the holiday weather, but one complained that his frozen beer had exploded overnight.

  11. #26
    pandr Guest

    Default May 15th 2012

    May 15th 1917

    Near Wainwright, AB, a funnel-shaped wind hoisted a small shack off its foundation and whirled it some 3 m above the ground. During the cyclone, the air was filled with sticks, stones, glass, and other missiles. When the shack landed, 5 people were buried under the debris but escaped unharmed, apart from a few bruises and a bad scare. The father/husband was pinned under the stove.

  12. #27
    pandr Guest

    Default May 16th 2012

    May 16th 1853

    A terrible fire, driven by a fierce northwest gale, raged north of Ottawa, ON, and along the Ottawa River, sweeping away fences, bridges, houses, mills, cattle, and even humans. It consumed 2 churches and 30 other buildings, including grist and saw mills on Calumet Island in Quebec and in Pembroke, ON. About 200 families lost their homes. Fortunately, heavy rain halted the fire's progress

  13. #28
    pandr Guest

    Default May 17th 2012

    May 17th 1944

    Frost damaged tomatoes and other tender early plants in the Ottawa Valley. The cold was so severe-the worst in 54 years-that plant stalks hardened and turned black. Early market garden crops were a total loss. Ice 1/4 inch thick formed in farm pails and wash basins. The ground temperature at night touched -4°C.

  14. #29
    pandr Guest

    Default May 18th 2012

    May 18th 2003

    May had been grey, cool, and rainy in southern Ontario. Farmers feared losing crops seeded earlier or being unable to seed at all. A warm fall, a cold spring, and a nasty parasitic mite wreaked havoc on half the province's 35,000 beehives. High honey prices and a warm fall had tempted beekeepers to prolong operations, but it only gave mites more time to infest and destroy many hives.

  15. #30
    pandr Guest

    Default May 20th 2012

    May 20th 2006

    After 9 days of rain, the Yamaska and Aux Brochets Rivers in Quebec overflowed, forcing about 200 people from their homes. Meteorologists blamed a stationary upper low hovering over the Great Lakes for dropping more than 140 mm of rain. Evacuees faced water-filled basements upon their return. Cowansville was the worst hit.

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