The December ice storm of 2013 can be described with one simple word, hard. It shattered records, cut power and through the heart of the storm I was battling a personal tragedy, the loss of our beloved Beagle Junior. The storm was bad, my loss painful and combined it was just a hard week.

Ice storms are probably some of the hardest events to forecast because a subtle change in temperature, wind flow or almost anything can tremendously change things. For two weeks the EMCWF weather model eventually followed by the Canadian and finally American models hinted at a large storm before Christmas. The uncertainty slowly became not whether a storm would hit, but what kind of weather it would bring? Would it bring a mix of snow and ice pellets or rain turning to freezing rain? No one really knew, it was such a borderline event any shift in track or even a small change in conditions would have a drastic impact. Above all else, I was dealing with a sick dog, a sick furry child that needed surgery and was headed in Friday morning for what I was reassured would be a quick, simple, extensive but complication free surgery. I had no idea at the time, but two very different storms were barreling towards me.

As the forecast date drew closer it became more and more apparent that a large freezing rain event was possible, then probable, then likely.

It was really a two punch storm, the first wave of freezing wave would arrive very late Thursday night and continue through Friday morning with a larger second wave arriving Saturday evening into Sunday morning.

The storm arrived in the Toronto area Friday morning just after midnight as warm air was ushered in with the first of the two systems. The precipitation began as snow but quickly changed over to mix of ice pellets and eventually freezing drizzle. Roads quickly became icy and this unfortunate driver in Toronto lost control striking a utility pole. This power outage was number 1. It would be the first of many.

Sanders, salters and trucks sparying brine began to appear and they were out in force battling a relentless enemy falling from the sky.

By 10AM Friday morning many places in the GTA were either slightly above or just at the freezing mark. The sublimation process and evaporative cooling helped the drizzle freeze in the ever so slightly above freezing weather.

Christmas is always such a busy time! Juggling personal life, work and everything else can be overwhelming! This was the last data I looked at before the world came crashing down. It was ominous, almost an inch of liquid was forecast.

The storm continued through the day Friday with the ice ever increasing slowly due to a mix of spotty showers and rainy mist. Then it happened... the vet called, it was 6:30PM and she said "you better come, Junior (our dog) isn't doing well". My girlfriend and I rushed down to the vet clinic, it was a complete shock. Earlier we had been told he was fine, the surgery went well and he was doing fine. Then hours later everything was upside down! We stayed there all night Friday and soon the darkness turned into daylight as it became Saturday morning. Junior was doing better, he was conscious and acknowledging us. Then shortly after noon, everything went south, he was struggling to breathe, his organs were failing. He was sick, he was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. He passed away around 12:35 that afternoon. We were devastated, Jen was sick with grief and there I was, barely holding my composure, it was a mix of destitute anger towards the vet, grief from the loss and a bill that balloon into the $8000 range. Junior was our child, he may have had 4 legs but we took him everywhere, even scheding vacations around him and Jen may as well have been his biological mother seeing the way she treated him. Between grief and pure exhaustion, when Jen and I arrived home, we just collapsed. I was not heading out into the ice storm, checking data or doing anything weather related, I simply did not care. I briefly somehow pulled my mind away from everything to take this photo and some distant transformers exploded. Just before I pressed the shutter button we lost power in the house.

Without power my internet modem would not work so my cell phone was my only data bridge. I was curious to see the outage data and a little alarmed at how bad it was getting out there since most of the power lines in the suburbs are underground. This meant primary feed lines were going down, not only residential lines!!!