Saturday, January 14, 2006
global warming or the calm before the storm?
From CHQR radio...
"Warm Weather Good News For City's Roads Department
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:50 AM
CALGARY/AM770CHQR - The dry weather has kept sanders and graders off Calgary's streets, and given workers in the roads department a chance to catch up on maintenance work delayed by the wet summer weather. Normally more than 300 staff members would be working all sorts of hours dealing with snow and ice on city streets, however they've been able to turn their attention to pot hole repairs, fence repair, and litter pickup.
Don Basarsky, operations administrator for road maintenance, says while staff have to be paid, there are some savings to the city. "When we do have the nice weather, we're saving on the overtime, we're saving on fuel costs and of course we're not using any materials so that's another savings that occurs."
"Lack of Snow Means High Fire Hazard
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:40 PM
CALGARY/AM770 CHQR - A lack of snow, and warm, drying winds are causing a high fire hazard in southern Alberta forests. Wildfire Ranger Bart McAnally says there have actually been nine forest fires since Christmas, and one continues to burn just west of Calgary, near Morley. He says the nice weather also means people are out hiking and camping, and warns anyone starting a campfire to keep a close eye on it, and make sure it's completely out."
Can you imagine - camping in Alberta in January?? Still, I suppose you wouldn't have to worry about bears coming and eating you or your food! I think they should still be hibernating ...
When we look back at this time last year, we were shivering in the coldest temperatures we had ever experienced - just look at last year's blog...
Below is what we said on the 11th January last year (2005)...
"Just a quick update from The Folks in Tuscarora Way here. It's been a long, cold few weeks following Christmas, and we can't quite remember when the temperature was last anything close to zero (Boxing Day maybe?). January is apparently the coldest month here, and its second week is supposedly the worst, but normally it's -4 to -6, not the -15 to -25 we've been getting recently. Everything is covered in snow, the Jeep won't start cos it's too cold and the drive to work is 'BRUTAL' as the Canadians say. My normal 15 minute drive to the Foothills took nearly an hour today...
But... it seems that in terms of the weather, "we ain't seen nothin' yet"! The temp as I write is -10 or so, but overnight a storm front will move in from B.C. which will drop us down to -30 or so, with fresh snow and high winds. With windchill, the predicted temperature is -45. Minus FORTY-FIVE! "
Okay - it can still happen. We might get an arctic outflow at any minute that will plunge us into the depths of winter. But these warm temperatures are causing weird and wonderful problems for some people. For example, there are problems with the ice roads in the north of the province - they aren't icy enough to drive on....
CBC news January 4th 2006
"Officials caution early birds on ice roads
Last updated Jan 4 2006 08:44 AM CST
Highways officials in the Mackenzie Delta are urging people in Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk not to drive on the region's winter roads before they are ready. Delta residents are losing their patience with the unseasonably warm weather, which has delayed the opening of ice roads by almost two weeks. People in the communities can't travel far until the roads, cut across rivers and lakes, are ready."
"Diamond road delays
Work on the winter road to the N.W.T.'s diamond mines is two weeks behind because of the unseasonably warm weather.
The road won't be open to light traffic at least until early February, says Diavik diamond mine's Tom Hoefer, but there will still be enough time to get the thousands of loads of fuel, tires and other goods to the mines before spring.
Hoefer says there's just 25 to 40 centimetres (10 to 16 inches) of ice on the section of the road between Tibbitt and Gordon Lakes. There needs to be at least 40 cm for equipment to plough the snow on the ice so that it thickens. Hoefer says snow cats are working at the north end of the 567-kilometre road where the weather has been colder. The ice has to be just under one metre thick to hold a fully loaded fuel truck. But some have braved the routes to other communities, even though the department of transportation says it's unsafe and illegal to drive the roads."
Turns out that many places in the north of this country are only accessible by 'road' when the rivers freeze hard enough for long enough to allow people to drive on them. Otherwise they have to rely on airplanes, which are too expensive and also aren't generally equipped to bring in the size and weight of supplies needed - I don't think that there are many airstrips in the north that could accommodate something like a Hercules that would be needed to bring in some of the big mining equipment.
Anyway, we've seen for ourselves how unstable the ice is in and around Calgary. On New Year's Day we took ourselves up to Elbow Falls and Allen Bill pond in Kananaskis. It was a beautiful day, and J thought he might get in a little bit of skating on the pond. However, when we got there, there was no skating to be had...
Actually, I suppose that's not really fair. The truth is that there's no ice and no skating at the pond, not because of the warmer than usual temperatures, but because the pond has become part of the Elbow river. When we had all of the rain last June, the river burst its banks and made its way into the pond, meaning that the pond now has a raging torrent flowing in at one end, and a raging torrrent flowing out at the other end. In fact, rather than trying to divert the river to its original course, the parks people have simply redesignated the pond as part of the Elbow river, which means that you now have to have a river permit to fish there.
It used to be that they would stock the pond with fish, and any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a rod and line could come and see if they could pull the fish out. I'm not sure, but I think you now need a river fishing permit because some river fish are endangered and they need to know how many rods are licensed for any one stretch of river at a time (but I could be talking complete nonsense here!).
Anyway, it was a lovely day with pure blue sky, and warm enough to be out without the usual coat, hat, gloves etc that seemed to characterise all of our outings in January last year.
We could even say that it was warm enough for Mr White to be out in a short-sleeved shirt, but that would really be true of the whole year round! Even when he has to resort to a long sleeved shirt, it still has to have the sleeves rolled up. Note that the other people in the picture below are wearing coats and hats! Maybe they were tourists...
Elbow falls was lovely. The paths were still a bit icy, but we managed to make our way down to the river - this is me in my teenage mutant ninja (or hero!) turtles down filled body warmer...
So, here we are approximately half way through January and we still haven't had anything like the cold weather of last year. While it makes driving a lot easier, its BROWN, in n and around Calgary at least. We took ourselves out to Cochrane yesterday, and after a bit of a spending spree in the 'Pots and Peppers' cookshop, we wandered off to look a bit more closely at the statue of the cowboy on the 'big' hill just outside of town. For those of you who have driven past the cowboy on his horse, he probably doesn't look that big. However, when one is up close, he actually is pretty durned huge.
Here's a rather chilled Mr White with the Cochrane cowboy...
And as you can see, the landscape is pretty durned brown as far as the eye can see. At this time of year, it often reminds me of those old sepia toned photographs that everybody has in a box in a cupboard somewhere. There's no colour other than tones of brown - no vibrant green, no blue, just brown grass, stark black-brown trees and less typically, a grey sky. If you look at the next photograph, you'll probably be very surprised at just how blue a pair of blue jeans can look when everything else is BROWN!
On a more colourful note, the amaryllis burst into bloom just after new year... we were dead impressed by the big red flowers. I think I had tried to grow one before at home, but it didn't do anything and I was a bit worried about this one repeating the lack of activity. However, it didn't disappoint...
And the lipstick plant is coming on in leaps and bounds... This was what it was doing about 10 days ago, and I thought that this was the extent of the lipstick stuff...
However, this is it today. Turns out that the purple things aren't really the real deal; in fact there are red flowers that then emerge from the purple bits and I suppose that these are why its is called the lipstick plant - its a good job!
So there you go.
I'm off to Edmonton on Tuesday for a meeting but apart from that, next week doesn't hold anything very exciting (we hope!). I'm flying to Edmonton...not driving...
"Warm Weather Good News For City's Roads Department
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:50 AM
CALGARY/AM770CHQR - The dry weather has kept sanders and graders off Calgary's streets, and given workers in the roads department a chance to catch up on maintenance work delayed by the wet summer weather. Normally more than 300 staff members would be working all sorts of hours dealing with snow and ice on city streets, however they've been able to turn their attention to pot hole repairs, fence repair, and litter pickup.
Don Basarsky, operations administrator for road maintenance, says while staff have to be paid, there are some savings to the city. "When we do have the nice weather, we're saving on the overtime, we're saving on fuel costs and of course we're not using any materials so that's another savings that occurs."
"Lack of Snow Means High Fire Hazard
Jan, 06 2006 - 4:40 PM
CALGARY/AM770 CHQR - A lack of snow, and warm, drying winds are causing a high fire hazard in southern Alberta forests. Wildfire Ranger Bart McAnally says there have actually been nine forest fires since Christmas, and one continues to burn just west of Calgary, near Morley. He says the nice weather also means people are out hiking and camping, and warns anyone starting a campfire to keep a close eye on it, and make sure it's completely out."
Can you imagine - camping in Alberta in January?? Still, I suppose you wouldn't have to worry about bears coming and eating you or your food! I think they should still be hibernating ...
When we look back at this time last year, we were shivering in the coldest temperatures we had ever experienced - just look at last year's blog...
Below is what we said on the 11th January last year (2005)...
"Just a quick update from The Folks in Tuscarora Way here. It's been a long, cold few weeks following Christmas, and we can't quite remember when the temperature was last anything close to zero (Boxing Day maybe?). January is apparently the coldest month here, and its second week is supposedly the worst, but normally it's -4 to -6, not the -15 to -25 we've been getting recently. Everything is covered in snow, the Jeep won't start cos it's too cold and the drive to work is 'BRUTAL' as the Canadians say. My normal 15 minute drive to the Foothills took nearly an hour today...
But... it seems that in terms of the weather, "we ain't seen nothin' yet"! The temp as I write is -10 or so, but overnight a storm front will move in from B.C. which will drop us down to -30 or so, with fresh snow and high winds. With windchill, the predicted temperature is -45. Minus FORTY-FIVE! "
Okay - it can still happen. We might get an arctic outflow at any minute that will plunge us into the depths of winter. But these warm temperatures are causing weird and wonderful problems for some people. For example, there are problems with the ice roads in the north of the province - they aren't icy enough to drive on....
CBC news January 4th 2006
"Officials caution early birds on ice roads
Last updated Jan 4 2006 08:44 AM CST
Highways officials in the Mackenzie Delta are urging people in Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk not to drive on the region's winter roads before they are ready. Delta residents are losing their patience with the unseasonably warm weather, which has delayed the opening of ice roads by almost two weeks. People in the communities can't travel far until the roads, cut across rivers and lakes, are ready."
"Diamond road delays
Work on the winter road to the N.W.T.'s diamond mines is two weeks behind because of the unseasonably warm weather.
The road won't be open to light traffic at least until early February, says Diavik diamond mine's Tom Hoefer, but there will still be enough time to get the thousands of loads of fuel, tires and other goods to the mines before spring.
Hoefer says there's just 25 to 40 centimetres (10 to 16 inches) of ice on the section of the road between Tibbitt and Gordon Lakes. There needs to be at least 40 cm for equipment to plough the snow on the ice so that it thickens. Hoefer says snow cats are working at the north end of the 567-kilometre road where the weather has been colder. The ice has to be just under one metre thick to hold a fully loaded fuel truck. But some have braved the routes to other communities, even though the department of transportation says it's unsafe and illegal to drive the roads."
Turns out that many places in the north of this country are only accessible by 'road' when the rivers freeze hard enough for long enough to allow people to drive on them. Otherwise they have to rely on airplanes, which are too expensive and also aren't generally equipped to bring in the size and weight of supplies needed - I don't think that there are many airstrips in the north that could accommodate something like a Hercules that would be needed to bring in some of the big mining equipment.
Anyway, we've seen for ourselves how unstable the ice is in and around Calgary. On New Year's Day we took ourselves up to Elbow Falls and Allen Bill pond in Kananaskis. It was a beautiful day, and J thought he might get in a little bit of skating on the pond. However, when we got there, there was no skating to be had...
Actually, I suppose that's not really fair. The truth is that there's no ice and no skating at the pond, not because of the warmer than usual temperatures, but because the pond has become part of the Elbow river. When we had all of the rain last June, the river burst its banks and made its way into the pond, meaning that the pond now has a raging torrent flowing in at one end, and a raging torrrent flowing out at the other end. In fact, rather than trying to divert the river to its original course, the parks people have simply redesignated the pond as part of the Elbow river, which means that you now have to have a river permit to fish there.
It used to be that they would stock the pond with fish, and any Tom, Dick, or Harry with a rod and line could come and see if they could pull the fish out. I'm not sure, but I think you now need a river fishing permit because some river fish are endangered and they need to know how many rods are licensed for any one stretch of river at a time (but I could be talking complete nonsense here!).
Anyway, it was a lovely day with pure blue sky, and warm enough to be out without the usual coat, hat, gloves etc that seemed to characterise all of our outings in January last year.
We could even say that it was warm enough for Mr White to be out in a short-sleeved shirt, but that would really be true of the whole year round! Even when he has to resort to a long sleeved shirt, it still has to have the sleeves rolled up. Note that the other people in the picture below are wearing coats and hats! Maybe they were tourists...
Elbow falls was lovely. The paths were still a bit icy, but we managed to make our way down to the river - this is me in my teenage mutant ninja (or hero!) turtles down filled body warmer...
So, here we are approximately half way through January and we still haven't had anything like the cold weather of last year. While it makes driving a lot easier, its BROWN, in n and around Calgary at least. We took ourselves out to Cochrane yesterday, and after a bit of a spending spree in the 'Pots and Peppers' cookshop, we wandered off to look a bit more closely at the statue of the cowboy on the 'big' hill just outside of town. For those of you who have driven past the cowboy on his horse, he probably doesn't look that big. However, when one is up close, he actually is pretty durned huge.
Here's a rather chilled Mr White with the Cochrane cowboy...
And as you can see, the landscape is pretty durned brown as far as the eye can see. At this time of year, it often reminds me of those old sepia toned photographs that everybody has in a box in a cupboard somewhere. There's no colour other than tones of brown - no vibrant green, no blue, just brown grass, stark black-brown trees and less typically, a grey sky. If you look at the next photograph, you'll probably be very surprised at just how blue a pair of blue jeans can look when everything else is BROWN!
On a more colourful note, the amaryllis burst into bloom just after new year... we were dead impressed by the big red flowers. I think I had tried to grow one before at home, but it didn't do anything and I was a bit worried about this one repeating the lack of activity. However, it didn't disappoint...
And the lipstick plant is coming on in leaps and bounds... This was what it was doing about 10 days ago, and I thought that this was the extent of the lipstick stuff...
However, this is it today. Turns out that the purple things aren't really the real deal; in fact there are red flowers that then emerge from the purple bits and I suppose that these are why its is called the lipstick plant - its a good job!
So there you go.
I'm off to Edmonton on Tuesday for a meeting but apart from that, next week doesn't hold anything very exciting (we hope!). I'm flying to Edmonton...not driving...
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