Tuesday, January 06, 2009
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How’s this for cold comfort? Sask-atoon’s deep freeze is likely the longest streak of low temperatures below -25 C that has numbed this city since record-keeping began in 1892.
The 24-day streak started cruelly Dec. 13 after relatively mild temperatures and continued at least through Monday, said David Phillips, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist.
“That’s the thing that’s brutal,” Phillips said from Toronto, where he was enjoying a temperature of -4. “We can all handle a few (cold) days. It’s the long haul that wears you down.
“It’s really a shocker, the duration of the cold.”
Phillips said he couldn’t find a longer cold snap in Saskatoon’s recorded weather history during a look through the records Monday. Even during the infamous January of 1950, when temperatures hit -46 and -45 (not counting any wind chill), the cold streak of -25 or lower lasted “only” 21 days.
The first two mild weeks of December kept the month from being Saskatoon’s coldest ever. It still averaged -20.6, the sixth-coldest December on record and the most frigid since 1983.
Prince Albert was slightly colder in December, with an average temperature of -21.4, while Regina registered -18. Neither of those burgs have suffered a -25 streak approaching Saskatoon’s, Phillips said.
The normal average temperature for Saskatoon in December is -14.3.
The historic streak could end today. Environment Canada was forecasting a low of -23 for today, before another drop Wednesday.
There’s no good news on the horizon.
January is expected to be colder than its normal mean temperature of -17, said Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Cormier. The three-month period of January through March is also expected to be colder than normal, he said.
The frigid temperatures and the bad timing of the New Year’s Eve snowstorm has left city snow crews well behind schedule.
As of Monday, snowplows still hadn’t touched almost one-third of the priority streets, which range from arteries such as Circle Drive and Eighth Street to bus routes and minor collector streets. The major arteries have been cleared once, but may need a second pass, said Gaston Gourdeau, manager of the city’s public works branch.
Ninety per cent of bus routes are cleared, but many minor collector streets still haven’t seen a snowplow.
“We’re looking forward to warmer temperatures,” Gourdeau said. “It’s been tough for everybody.”
The New Year’s Eve storm was a double-whammy for snowplow operators.
Many city staff were on holidays. Hydraulic parts of heavy equipment respond more slowly, like everything else, in the cold, forcing crews to get less done than they normally would.
Gourdeau predicts snow crews will be in some neighbourhoods clearing out trouble spots by the end of the week.
He said he decided against implementing a street parking ban to speed up snow clearing for two reasons.
The city hasn’t had the staff to guarantee cleanup within 72 hours until this week.
In frigid weather, it’s also difficult to ask residents to move cars off the street to spots where plug-ins may be unavailable, he said.
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Hey, I resemble that address.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/010423.html
REPLY: Be sure to vote for Kate as Best Conservative Blog is the Weblog awards, link below- Anthony
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-conservative-blog/
I have to agree that these things really are meaningless. It’s just the planet going through what it always has, but for some reason we seem surprised by it.
TonyB2
So much for the UK’s energy policy :o(
That’ll be the Energy policy that decided we should heat our homes and generate our electricity using the same source of fuel then? Pure genius if you ask me.
Flanagan (07:55:16) :
Yeah, right, super-interesting. In Sydney today, it’s 32 C, or 6 C above average for this time of the year. I find it as interesting as a clod streak in a small Canadian village in the winter.
Sydney Airport reported a high temperature of 29C for the 6th. Current temp is 21C.
Flanagan must be getting his readings from the local sewage treatment plant.
PearlandAggie, thanks for the pointer to Dr. Spencer. Very funny.
That Washington Post article about pine beetle infestations in Canada is another example of ignorant and biased reportage. I suspect that the sources of the story are ill-informed Canadian foresters who are pushing the AGW agenda. The reporter made gratuitous uninformed links about potential beetle destruction in the US.
The pine beetle has already ravaged American forests from the Sierras to the Southeast. Anecdotal evidence of pine beetle damage includes the 700,000 acres of dead lodgepole pine that fueled the massive Yellowstone fire. Much of the areas burned in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Colorado, South Dakota and elsewhere in the Rockies during the last few decades contained vast quantities of beetle killed trees.
The Pacific coastal forests in Canada and the US suffer from another destructive bug, the spruce bud worm. It too is responsible for massive kills of Douglas fir, true firs, hemlock and spruce trees. The evidence is there to see unless wild fires have already burned the insect killed and dying trees.
On our public lands, every time the Forest Service or BLM try to salvage these trees or reduce the fuel loads, our friends (the saviors of the environment) tie up the decision making process with appeals and lawsuits. Consequently, the fuel loads continue to increase. Our public forests, watersheds, and wildlife are in grave danger of destruction or irreparable damage as a result of radical environmentalists misguided activities. They continue to obstruct essential forest management notwithstanding that wildfires are the most efficient way to release all of the carbon stored in trees into the atmosphere.
As noted by a commentator above, extreme winters are the most effective control of these insects. Canadian environmentalists ought to be praying for more cold weather rather than whining about about impacts from non-existent AGW.
Saskatoon, a small Canadian village ? Hey , go easy on this city of over 200,000 , my old hometown. I remember well the winter of ’83 there. My dad’s car’s fuel line froze near the carb ( yes he had plenty of gas line anti freeze in ) and took him a couple of days with a hair dryer to thaw, wow never seen so much black smoke when she started up. It was – 45 C ( WITHOUT THE SISSY WINDCHILL FACTOR ) or a bit colder at night seemingly forever that winter. I’m sure this city has the most extreme range of temperature in a year on the planet. Near -50 C in the winter and + 40 C in the summer.
Brent in Calgary
“Milder and drier winter predicted”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7635513.stm
“The forecast of another mild winter has been welcomed by Help the Aged.
Dr James Goodwin, the charity’s head of research, said: “The onset of winter causes significant anxiety among many older people.”
“This forecast will assist policy makers to adapt their strategies to ensure that the negative effects of winter weather are reduced as far as possible.”
But he warned older people should still guard against sudden cold snaps this winter. ”
“More elderly ‘could die of cold’ ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7752213.stm
computer models help policy makers???????
Stand aside, Canadians and polar bears will begin migrating south soon. You don’t want to run into neither, as one is hungry, the other is probably really pissed off from all the cold.
It gots to make ya wonder…
How the h-e-c-k do you set COLD records in SASKA-frickin-TOON ??
For that matter, how the h-e-c-k do you set SNOWFALL records in places like FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA and GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN, as we did last month ??
This global warming is getting totally out of control. We MUST have passed another tipping point, or something.
The background scenes shown in “We’re not scared anymore Mr Gore” provide a possible explanation and an indication of things to come. It appears possible that this tale was set in Saskatoon!
http://littleskepticpress.blogspot.com/2008/11/were-not-scared-anymore-mr-gore_21.html
Flanagan
BOM figures for Sydney’s Observatory Hill station for first 6 days of January, maximum temp in degC
34.7
22.7
23.0
24.6
27.9
28.1
Temps are very slightly warmer if you take the obs from Sydney Airport.
Doesn’t look too unusual to me. Is this a heatwave for you poor lot over there?
Canadians don’t get pissed off, they become comedians and game show hosts. 😉
TonyB2, SandyInDerby,
I just recently started going through the BBC “Yes, Minister” series and realized partway in what a education I’m getting on British politics :-}). That, along with “Keeping Up Appearances” and “Good Neighbors”, pretty much rounds out a doctoral study on the culture. Just hang in there…
Will
“This global warming is getting totally out of control. We MUST have passed another tipping point, or something.”
How many times must this mistake be corrected – it’s climate *change*.
Change means things will happen differently, like what the models model.
It’s a consensus, and humans are to blame. Send money.
Wow, Saskatoon is home for me. I can attest to the cold we have been experiencing here! It has indeed been many years since we have had a stretch of weather like this. Were all hoping for the January thaw. I would say that since about 2004 it has been steadily getting cooler and cooler. I think 3 August frosts in the last five years or so. I am not quite prepared yet to think of this as “climate” rather than “weather”, but a few more years of this….
TonyB2. No, don’t worry, we only actually get about 3% of our gas from Russia. The UK has to worry about 5-10 years time – when we still haven’t made the plunge to go nuclear AND coal. Then the lights will go out.
Brent Matich in Calgary 11:16:56
Ottawa goes extreme to extreme, about -30C to +30C in six months. And we’re supposed to worry about 1C per century???
Richard North @ur momisugly 08:20:23 : Saskatoon? Never ‘eard of it! And where’s this Cananda yer on about?
Robert Wood (09:35:24) :It’s up North ‘ere, North 🙂 You, you, europhile you 🙂
Robert of Ottawa
But hey, under North’s name lay a little URL. GOLD, man, GOLD. Unless mine eyes deceive me. The first MSM front-page AGW-debunking headline.
Flanagan (07:55:16) :
Yeah, right, super-interesting. In Sydney today, it’s 32 C, or 6 C above average for this time of the year. I find it as interesting as a clod streak in a small Canadian village in the winter.
REPLY: Interesting or not, at least I manage to spell “cold” correctly. 😉 Has Sydney reached a similar streak of record warm days? – Anthony
Melbourne has been cool to mild (apart from a couple of warm days) all summer.
Normally we have 2 or 3 hot blasts above 40 degrees C over the whole summer. Nothing has been seen yet.
anonymous (08:48:08) :
alec “Global warming center” = We have to keep the charade up or there will be no “center” left …that is why.
Flanagan: 99% Australians believe in AGW so they will never admit to any data thats why as well LOL
That must put me in the radical, anarchist, dissenting, rabble-rousing, non-conformist, 1%…
On behalf of all civilised Aussies I wish to deliver an apology for Flanagan. We’re not all boorish fools who believe in AGW. Many of us have brains which we exercise frequently by looking at real data and looking out the window to observe. For the record, the western suburbs of Sydney (where I am) reached a maximum of around 38-41C yesterday. I’m expecting about 38C here today and a bit further out west to the base of the Blue Mountains (the suburb of Penrith) it will be 40C if the forecasters are correct. Those temperatures aren’t abnormal for this time of year. I remember a spell where the temperature didn’t go under 20C for 2 weeks. At one point it was 28C at 0400 due to the sea breezes dying off and the westerly winds coming in bringing heat from the inland. Now that spell was misery!
Now Flanagan, if you could nip down to your favourite supermarket and buy yourself a kilo of manners and civility I’m sure it would be appreciated. Cheers.
Quick scan around the Sydney Metropolitan area Tuesday 6th Jan 2009 – the top temps C
Sydney – Observatory Hill (as reported an island in an Urban Heat Island) 06/02:00pm 26.7
Badgerys Creek (out west toward the Blue Mountains) 06/03:30pm 38.5
Bellambi (Illawarra region, near the coast south of Sydney) 06/02:00pm 24.4
Canterbury (about 20 km west-south-west of Sydney CBD) 06/02:30pm 31.7
Richmond (Hawkesbury – Northwest Metropolitan area) 06/03:30pm 38.1
Terrey Hills – (Northern Suburbs about 20km due north CBD) 06/02:00pm 30.7
Penrith – (Western Sydney Metro area – Gateway to the Blue Mountains) 06/04:30pm 41.6
These high western metro area temps are ‘normal’ that’s why few people in the past dared venture to live in these areas. Now with the urban sprawl and the few years of relatively cooler temps the younger set (who have no historical knowledge of these temps) are moving to these ‘cheaper’ areas.
What a marvellous place! Every day is magic on this planet. Every day is a new day… with no memory of what happened the day before… nor any thought to what will happen tomorrow. People are ready to believe whatever makes their day more enjoyable… no matter how absurd.
http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/economic-forecasts/2009-bear-market-delusion-53541.html
BTW today is forecast to be warmer 🙂
The data above came from the links here – Latest Weather Observations for the Sydney Area
Steve Berry (13:58:10) :
TonyB2. No, don’t worry, we only actually get about 3% of our gas from Russia. The UK has to worry about 5-10 years time – when we still haven’t made the plunge to go nuclear AND coal. Then the lights will go out.
That will also be when Chicken Little comes home to roost – I would expect a massive public backlash by the UK public vs anyone who happens to be an available target.
What are the options if the UK domestic power supply is inadequate by 2013+, – run lines from France? What happens to UK industry/economy if the power supply is intermittent?
Melbourne has been cooler, while Perth and to a lesser extant Sydney have been warmer.
Dec 08 mean for Mel 23.3 Long term mean 25.2 9 (ie -0.9`C)
Jan 09 mean (so far) 23.9 Long term mean 25.9 (ie -2.0`C)
Todays only 24 and tomorrow’s 19 and nothing over 30ish in the 7 day forecast.
Flanagan, I think this is an issue of perception. Every slight upward blip is proclaimed in the media as the beginning of the end of the world. Every story about cooler weather is generally buried on page 40 or so. A site like this can at least bring balance to the reporting of weather by pointing out some of the meteorological events that due to not being part of current popular meme don’t get attention.
People here are generally aware that weather events are not always significant in terms of climate, however given the one sided nature of media reporting on this issue, I think this site perfoms a good service in providing some semblance of balance to the reporting of what is occuring with our weather/climate.