Posts Tagged: winter
April 11th 2013 Ice Storm
On July 19, 2016
- 2013 Storm Chases
Surface analysis 15Z Thu Apr 11 2013
A smattering of ice pellets cover the roof of a home in Leaside, Toronto as the first wave of precipitation from the impending storm moves in
The low elevation of Leaside in Toronto allowed the snow up north to instead fall as ice pellets down in the city. The expected change over to rain was stunted as more cold air flooded in and mixing began to occur aloft.
Commuters in Brampton near hwy 50 & Queen St get on a Zoom bus as heavy wet snow falls.
The snow was not expected, a combination of colder air flooding in and additional mixing aloft meant that the precipitation, which was supposed to remain as ice pellets eventually changing to rain fell almost entirely as snow with the first wave of precipitation.
A "surprise" winter storm blankets Langstaff Rd just west of hwy 27 with a coating of wet snow.
This unusual late season storm left many municipalities unprepared to treat the icy road surfaces and commence plowing operations.
The snow also created an additional forecast element not forseen, with a fresh blanket on the ground it meant that temperatures were able to remain cooler longer and this would aid in the freezing rain process which would begin with the second wave of precipitation much later in the day towards evening.
Normally at this time of the year the first spring sprouts are shooting out of the ground, but that seems unlikely given the fresh coating of snow.
This was the radar image at the time showing just where the snow, ice pellets, freezing rain and normal rain sat. You can see the blues and purples (snow) effecting the GTA and areas eastward while much of the Hamilton, Halton and western portions of Mississauga were seeing a good mix of ice pellets (orange). Further south, along the QEW on the south shore of Lake Ontario most of the precipitation was falling as rain (green) and to the west a pocket of freezing rain (pink) had developed over Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and other surrounding communities due to cold air damming at the surface.
As I started my missing late at nigh to find freezing rain as the second wave of precipitation moved in ice accretion was rapidly building.
Here, a road sign stands frozen near Caledon.
The streets of Orangeville required a pair of well sharpened skates.
A driver heads west along an ice covered Broadway in downtown Orangeville
Glazed city streets
Temporary signs posted outside of a new subdivision in King City give a good idea of how icy conditions were becoming in areas that were relatively close to the big city.
The icy roads led to a less than quick morning rush hour commute. This unfortunate driver lost control and took down a traffic signal on Dufferin just south of Steeles in Toronto (Downsview).
The wet soil, strong easterly winds and additional load from the ice were too much for this tree to bare.
Eventually it come toppling down near Kipling and The Westway in Toronto (Etobicoke).
Icy geometry at its finest
This winter-wonderland photo is the highway 400 northbound on ramp from Rutherford Rd
It was very icy!
Kettleby, like King City had significant ice accretion on most objects.
Between the still semi frozen ground and the soaking rains that have been persistent for nearly 5 full days, many fields slowly turned into small lakes. So not only was the freezing rain a nuisance for drivers and utility companies but it also added to the growing flooding situation in some places.
A ranch fence is covered with icicles, this is a great example of just how much rain was really coming down.
A ranch fence is covered with icicles
A beautiful snow and ice covered farm in Nobleton
Covered in ice
Don't take it too fast!
This tree not only bends down right to the road, but also stretches out across a power line. It's a good thing this particular line is fully insulated otherwise there would have been arcing and fire most likely.
This is a perfect illustration of how & why most power outages occur.
This feeder line is fortunately insulated to prevent arcing but the weight of the branch alone in many situations is enough to bring down wires and disrupt electrical service.
My weather station stopped providing wind data, this picture explains why.
Even in the in the 50km/h easterly winds the ice was still strong enough to overcome the spinning wind cups and freeze the unit solid.
This is what the data from my weather station looked like. The chart starts at midnight on April 11th, temperatures early on remain relative warm until about 7AM which the first precipitation falls and evaporative cooling takes hold. From that point on temperatures continue to remain around the freezing mark but there is a lull in the precipitation shortly after midday. Then the second wave starts around 11PM and by 4AM on April 12th my anemometer just freezes solid. From that point on rain continues to fall and freeze until almost noon when finally the wind cups start spinning.
Here's the trip log, a whopping 341km and I didn't even really go that far!
It was an intense 11 hours of news gathering with taking photos on the side.
This map does not even account for the local utility companies, this is just the provincial agency that handles rural areas and primary lines. You can see there are plenty of outages!
Here's a zoomed in image showing power outages in Southwestern Ontario. What a mess!
Here's a zoomed in image showing power outages in Eastern Ontario. It's an even bigger mess!
This image is showing one of the earlier REG-GEM (Regional GEM) forecasts. The model had an excellent grip on the scope of the storm and freezing rain area even though it was a full 48 hours away at the time.
Courtesy of SpotWx here's the GEM forecast just north of my house in Vaughan.
March 24th 2016
On March 27, 2016
- 2016 Storm Chases
A day and night of freezing rain coated trees, homes and roads with 40-45mm of ice. The storm was a product of an Oklahoma low with a potent surface warm front that simply stalled out and could not overcome the dominant sub-freezing easterly flow just north of the great lakes. This created a perfect storm so to speak where the heaviest rain sat right on an axis of rotation and pummelled some areas just north of Toronto for excess of 24 hours. The result was significant ice accretion leading to substantial tree and infrastructure damage.
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The storm while destructive was also very much a rare beast of beauty! As the low departed on good Friday and gaveway to a strong ridge of high pressure, bright sunshine broke through illuminating the glazed icy landscape north of Toronto. I headed out on a photographic journey to explore the beauty and the simultaneous destruction that nature delivered.
October 17th 2015
On October 21, 2015
- 2015 Storm Chases
October is notorious in Southern Ontario for wild swings in weather and the third weekend of October proved to be one of those wild rides. Just a week earlier I was celebrating Thanksgiving in a t-shirt and shorts with temperatures of 24C but that warm spell was crushed as cold polar air moved in the following Thursday, and even colder air flooded in Friday evening setting the stage for strong snow squalls Saturday morning.
By 8PM Friday a well organized lake effect rain squall was pushing inland from Georgian Bay and I figured that I would prepare myself for what would likely be an interesting Saturday morning.
Just an hour earlier snow squall watches were replaced with warnings. Some forecast models such as the WRF-NAM, HRRR and HRDPS were plopping almost a foot of snow in the highlands between Blue Mountain and Feversham. I figured the amounts were high since typically, most October snow melts on contact with the warm ground and air temperatures usually don't hang below freezing for any length of time. Plus, the lakes are still very warm and really moderate any cold air masses.
I got up relatively early Saturday morning and headed out the door around 9:30AM. There was a large sustained squall exactly as forecast. I really had no idea how much snow was falling since webcams in this area are sparse and squalls can be very local. Needless to say a cold sunny morning turned into a cloudy snowy morning near Honeywood.
I stopped in Honeywood to grab a few photos. This was the first significant snow I encountered and accumulations ranged from 1cm to about 5cm locally. The roads were mainly bare and wet with the odd slushy section. Nothing my rear wheel drive car with summer tires couldn't handle.
I really lucked out, mother nature timed the snow squalls almost perfectly to coincide with the peak of the fall colours. The trees looked beautiful and the white blank landscape was very strange.
This was the first really colourful wood lot in the snowy landscape that I happened to come across. I made sure to get a series of photos. I was worried the weight of the snow and wind the previous day would have stripped the leaves farther to my northwest and did not want to forgo any potential photos along the way.
I slowly drove up the road looking for some interesting subject matter when the sun suddenly popped out. I literally jerked the car onto the shoulder and was already stepping out before I had fully stopped. These windows of sunlight don't last long, you're literally dealing with a few seconds if that!
The only thing that would have been cooler would have been a blue sky!
I slowly drove deeper into the squall and eventually ran into treacherous roads near Singhampton! Cars were in the ditch, visibility was a couple hundred meters, there was hard paked ice and the temperature was zero! Yikes, way worse than what I had expected! My tire tracks revel the depth of the snow here, you can see it's a good 5-7cm deep.
The heavy snow under the squall reduced visibility so much that anything more than 20 or 30 meters away became washed out. It was not a good spot for photos, but I did find this cool building with an old horse and buggy car in Rob Roy.
This was the scene just a few hundred meters down the road from the horse and buggy house. Looking at these pine trees it sure felt like December!
Believe it or not there was a solid 10-12cm of snow covering everything! That's a heck of a lot of snow for October, especially given how wet it was
At this point I paused for thought. While the snow was cool, it was simply obscuring visibility far too much. The colour in the landscape was lost and believe me, I'll have months to photograph snow. I decided to push west to get to the edge of squall where the snow would stop.
After looking at the radar and visible satellite I decided to head southwest. It was my best bet for clearing and even some blue sky. This photo was taken in Ice River Springs at 10th Concession and Highway 2. You can see the sun was poking through the squall.
Just as I was about to escape the squall another wave of snow closed in darkening the sky and coating the landscape. So I did all I could and kept heading west.
Suddenly the sun came out again just west of Feversham near Lady Bank. While navigating through the squall I was also looking at Google Maps satellite images to find forested areas. Flat farm land is good for storm chasing but not very good for fall foliage.
Presto! What I was looking for finally happened, the squall cleared and sun came out. It was very surreal to have blue sky, convective cumulus, snow flakes and fall foliage. The temperature also jumped up to what felt like 7 degrees.
I quickly snapped photos where I could before the squall closed in again. I realized the snow on the trees was melting quickly so it was indeed warmer and very surreal.
I finally found the colour contrast I was looking for.
December 20th 2013 – The Historic Ice Storm
On December 22, 2014
- 2013 Storm Chases, Major Events
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!!!
