Snowstorm for Southern Ontario
 

My back is already hurting in anticipation of all the damn shovelling.

I'm hearing we could get up to 30cm by tomorrow morning.

Just in time for the weekend! Let's go tobogganing!

Seriously... whenever they call for a lot of snow, we never seem to get it. It's always the 5 to 10 cm of snow that turns into an ice storm or 60 cm of snow.


Maybe Toronto should keep the military on standby just in case... :lol:

I was lucky and missed that storm. I was living in Eastern Europe at the time and my parents sent me pictures of the snow on the roof and the piles of snow at the sides of the driveway. Wow.

Out on the East Coast I've missed two days of work due to the snowstorms... which is awesome since it's the last full week of school before Christmas... Only three days left...wohoooo!!!!!

The parents must be going crazy!

Snow has started. They did say on the news that we may not get as much as they originally thought. I'm thinking we may only get 10 cm. or so.

http://www.2ontario.com/webcam/oissouth.jpg?249315

Well, either way, it made the trek home much longer than usual, and it made the drivers seem to forget how to drive. What is it about snow and rain that makes people get amnesia.

send some of that stuff my way.........

I ditched my car because of it. Some farmer didn't put up the fencing and the drifting snow caught me. I don't have snow tires, so I lost traction and out into the drifts I went.

Put a nice big dent in my quarter panel where I hit a junction boix, too. And I had to file a police report. Dammit.

Well that was a snowfall alright...actually lemme check if it's over...

*goes to window*

Looks done to me. This'll be fun to walk through...

Wow! A whole 8 centimetres. Better close the city down!

Toronto = snow wimps

Did I call it or what?

Snow? What snow?

Mwaaaahhhahaaaa! out here in Newfie-land, it is sunny, no snow and +2!!!

To top it off; it looks like we're going to have a lovely spring day. Not bad for a Friday. :)

I'll happily send you some of the snow/ice crap I go this morning.. I looked like the freeze miser when i walked into the office - icicles hanging off my hair and my nose...

The winter of 2003-04 we received 292 inches of snow where I live. Over 160 in Jan. alone -- and 100 of that came in one dreadful weak. I have discovered I don't much enjoy shoveling off my roof, but when I have to, at least falling off isn't too dangerous, and can be kind of fun -- unless you sink too far down and can't extract yourself!

Never shovel a roof alone!

Last year was a bit under-average here: only 139 inches for the year. I'd like this year to be like that, but so far it appears we're on track for another well above average winter...

Whoever invented the snow blower deserves something real nice! I'm certainly thankful for the extra large one I have to use this year. But maleficent, you're right about how "nice" the ice can be at times.
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Wait wait wait. :o I take it all back! It's not winter until the 21st...

Lovely fall we're having... if you enjoy falling snow... :eek:

I think I only got about 5cm, it was definately way less than I was expecting :P


Where do you live pastortim?

Yeah, I was somewhat disappointed too. But oh well, less shoveling for me.

Do you ever get the feeling that meteorology is about as reliable as Astrology?

With another megastorm prediction down the tubes, I couldn't help but think of this guy:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/awfulweatherman2.html

That has to be a University station... I can't believe there is any other way that poor guy would get on the air.


I blame all of this on Heat Miser.

Well, we got 20cm in Montreal. My dad is on vacation so he's happy, while my mom tried to get to work and gave up after 2 hours in traffic and only half the distance covered. As for me, I have parties lined up all weekend, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it to all of them!


I hate snow. Fucking hate it.

um ya. OK.


anyways, how disappointing is this really? I was so pumped for a decent (read Barrie-style) snow day, that when I woke up and saw... bugger-all, it was a real let down.

(note to self - never cave to the better half's desire to purchase snow tires again)

Toronto is a city of snow wimps. I live here, but previously lived in the snowbelt and Montreal, both areas that get considerably more snow than Toronto. We'd get 2 or 3 feet of snow in a week on Lake Simcoe and you'd here a fraction of the bellyaching you get in Toronto for 1/3 that amount. And everyone went to work, too, right after shovelling the driveway out.

And snow tires are essential - if you live outside the city, at any rate, or if you drive a lot within the city. They make an enormous difference.

Not everyone here is a snow wimp... I for one don't get slowed down by it. I have my "big boots" for when the snow is especially deep and dress for the cold.

I've also been known for making it into work when no one else does... of course I use public transit all winter so it's easier to combat the snow when you take the streetcar.

I do know many snow wimps but it comes from living in a city that really only gets one to three real dumps of snow a year. The rest of the winter is usually just a slushy mess.

When the memory of Mel Lastman begging the military for snow shovels fades away, Toronto can shed the snow wimp image!

:)

Just to add to Charl's voice... I am also not a snow wimp, and take umbrage to the automatic grouping of all of the city into this category. Maybe it is because there are a lot of people who do not like it, because, well there are a lot of people here.

However, I grew up in Barrie, which is considered snow country, and boy did I hear a lot of griping about the snow there. Not only that, but they absolutely couldn't drive there, and it is a city which is blanketed with deep snow that gets rutted by tires on the roadway, and has steep hilly terrain.

I do agree with the snow tire assessment though, this year was the first timethat I invested the $800 and what a difference. Even in the slushy crap that passes for snow here today.

at the risk of raising the ire of the smug 905-ers, not only did Mel call in the military to help the shut-ins, but to quell the rising impatience of commuters who, for 5 days, couldn't drive in from the burbs easily.

I loved that storm, I taped it's progress through the 4 successive dumpings, and to the point where the huge snowblowers from PEI (thanks PEI!!!) and line of dump trucks removed the 8 foot high icy piles from the street.

edit: actually I just remembered, my neighbour and I were chatting about that storm last night. Her mom just flew in from (Bridgewater) Nova Scotia. They are both easterners, and both were under the impression that calling in the military was the right thing to do.

During the Mel-Storm, I was working as a production assistant, driving a van all over the city. For me, those days were brutal. The problem wasn't due to difficulty "trudging and driving through deep snow" but instead: parking, plowed snowbanks, and blocked streetcars.

In Toronto, every foot, of every curb, on every street, has a car parked in front of it. The curb lanes are only free for driving during the morning and evening rush hours. The centre lane is shared by cars and the Street cars.

So when the plows came, and completely filled in the curb lanes, there was nowhere to park. Most people wedged their cars into the snowbanks as best they could, but still blocked a bit of the centre lane. This blocked the streetcars and brought traffic to a halt. In otherwords: complete gridlock on the major arteries.

Drivers were then forced onto the secondary streets, which were narrower to begin with. Often, one wide lane was shared by both directions. With tempers short, the rules and conventions of the road went out the window, and you were on your own. The net result? More gridlock.

I remember being just about in tears, at an intersection where a steady stream of traffic ignored the 3 way stop, leaving me unable to get through for about 15 minutes. Believe me, a full 15 min stuck at an intersection is a lot longer than you might think.

So in some ways, the city ceased to function, and we needed help. Not because we were "wimpy", but because our urban planning failed miserably.

Snow finally stopped here in Ottawa, I've been hibernating all day, now I get to head to the parents house in Petawawa and see wha tthey have to offer. Guess I'll have to get used to helping the old man shovel snow when I'm there. Thats the one good thing about apartment living, no shovelling.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...ub=CTVNewsAt11

41 centimetres plus in Montreal yesterday. 3000 snow plows out to clear the streets.

That's because they get snow... same with Ottawa. I was always amazed when I lived in the Ottawa at the efficiency of the snow removal and the preparations for it...

Toronto cut its snow removal budget years ago. We really don't get as much snow as they do just north of us in the snow belt.

But what Toronto does not understand is that the ramifications - due to economic activity and the amount of traffic - of a snow storm in Toronto (or even of the few centimetres we got yesterday) are much greater than of storms that happen in smaller towns. It is well worth it to businesses for Toronto to put a few more plows on the road. Hell, they took their recently acquired melters off the road because some city worker got hurt using them last year and they still haven't agreed on how to train the workers better or if they want to install some kind of safety mechanism on the machines. Make a decision already!

Hahaha... fucking idiots at city hall.

My street was clear when I woke up yesterday so I don't know how bad of a job they are doing. But I do agree when there is a big dump it's a problem.

Perhaps now that the city can raise its own sources of revenue it might have more money in the budget for these sorts of things.

Of course this doesn't mean they will have the wisdom to use these new revenues...

41cm

http://www.canada.com/scripts/frontp...te&thumb=false

Yeah, it was still snowing when I posted, and my dad called me out to help him. Once we finished clearing everything out, another 5 cm layer had fallen, which we also had to clear before it got colder. I had to drive downtown for a few parties this weekend... pure driving hell. Piled up snow isn't going ANYWHERE for awhile, so parking is a baffling ordeal.

I agree. But I don't know if the snow removal budget in Toronto is being used wisely. I know for one thing, that the cost of sending those little sidewalk snow ploughs is wasted. I notice this weekend that one came down my street. 4 days after all the residents had shoveled the sidewalks clear. The cost of this could be directed towards additional road ploughs.

We never did have sidewalk snow removal before amalgamation (in old city of Toronto) so I think it is a grand waste.

And not using the snow melters is a crime.

Agreed. As I said in my recount of the Mel-storm, the real problem was built up snowbanks taking the space of our too many parked cars.

60 cm? bah
japan gets 2 meters!
http://abcasiapacific.com/news/stori...es_1534408.htm

The real reason for the military being called in was because of the liability the city would have faced if an ambulance couldn't get down one of the streets.

Even my wife's cousins from Sault Ste. Marie (where they get serious amounts of snow) could appreciate the issue of the snow bound streets. The streets in North York or out in the suburbs were fine. There they are both wider and they have a boulevard between the sidewalk and street. On my street it is wide enough for cars to parallel park on one side of the street, leaving just enough room for a car to pull over and let another car pass by. With the snow piled up a good four feet on either side of the street, there was very little room left to both park and drive. Cars could make their way down the street but trucks could not.

The whole problem with that storm was (as usual) Mel making an ass of himself. He could have called in the military and said nothing. Instead he was his usual over-the-top idiot.