It all came up because we were watching the weather forecast on TV and most of the province had a winter storm warning but only parts of the province had a blizzard warning. Calgary was not in the blizzard warning area. I looked out the window and it looked like a blizzard to me.
However I was wrong. Our weather only qualified as a winter storm. Here's how Environment Canada defines the 2 warning.
Winter Storm Warning
Winter Storm Warnings are issued where there is a combination of weather elements that produce the weather related hazard.
Winter Storm Warnings are issued when:
- Some type of precipitation is expected to occur and,
- One winter warning criterion (snowfall, wind, wind chill, freezing rain) is met or expected to be met and,
- Criterion for another winter warning type is approached or exceeded (snowfall, wind, temperature etc).
Blizzard Warning
Blizzard warnings are issued when all of the following conditions are expected to last 4 hours or more south of the Arctic tree line and 6 hours or more north of the Arctic tree line:
- Temperatures colder than 0°C and windchill of colder than -25°C.
- Widespread reduction of visibility to less than 1 km due to snow and/or blowing snow.
- Sustained wind speeds or gusts of 40 km/h or more.
Technically we only had a winter storm because it wasn't cold enough to qualify for a blizzard. While the temperature qualified at around -5 C but we only had a wind chill of around -20. (sounds funny - or sad - to have "only" and "-20" in the same sentence)
So a blizzard is a winter storm but a winter storm is not necessarily a blizzard (but it can be). Did you follow that?
I wonder how many of my childhood memories of blizzards need to be altered because they were in fact only winter storms.
Here's some pictures of our "winter storm" taken Saturday morning when we went outside.
Around 7 am we drove Mike to the train station so he could go write his CFA exam. It was a miracle that we got him there. The roads in the neighborhood where drifted over in parts. Just before we left a neighbor from across the street got stuck in front of his house in his 4 wheel drive. I went over and helped push him out. Good thing he went first because he made a trail for me to follow out. But coming back we weren't so lucky. We got stuck a block from home. It took a while to dig ourselves out.
I shovelled snow for a couple hours. A snow blower would have been nice.
We did go out later and managed to get to Jamie' basketball game. Once you got to the main roads the driving was okay because snow plows had been through. But getting to the main road from our place was tricky. We passed many stuck vehicles. My favorites are the city buses that somehow manage to go sideways and block both lanes of traffic. Jamie's team won and Jamie had a good game.
We were supposed to have our Ward Christmas party today but we postponed it because there were people who couldn't get out of their neighborhoods.
Mike thinks he did okay on his exam. He finds out the results in January. We'll keep our fingers crossed for him.
He can't wait to get back to Hawaii.
And while we are enjoying our winter storm Alana, Candi, Erika, Angie, Brylie and Tyken are enjoying the big island of Hawaii.
6 comments:
who Knew?
I can't wait to get home for Christmas!
It seemed like a blizzard at our place too except according to your research we only had a STORM because we didn't reach the low wind chill temperatures. Right now we now have the cold temperature of -30.5 degree celsuis (windchill -31 degree celsuis).
It was very cold for the dog show at our arena on the weekend. It was cold in the arena because we don't have our original large boiler working yet and our small back up boiler cannot keep up with heating the large arena. Despite the STORM and decreasing temperatures yesterday, the dog people are tough people and don't complain. They love their dogs and their sport of doing the dog runs. One crazy competitor wears shorts in this weather. Most of the competitors managed to get here the morning after the storm on Saturday morning. The most difficult driving part was getting our of their driveways and the streets of Edmonton. Saturday morning Blair and Troy did an excellent job clearing the driveway and parking area at 5 am before the competitors arrived at 6:30 am.
Back to your last blog entry: "Why do we live in here ?????
blizzard... winter storm...
don't matter..
i don't want to come home to any of that
I always though of a blizzard as a winter storm that you can't get around in. People were still able to fill up the mall on Friday and Saturday therefore I knew it couldn't be a blizzard. I also like to think that blizzard means tasty ice cream trat from dairy queen :)
But thanks for clarifying what characteristics a winter storm needs to have in order to qualify as a blizzard.
potato...potato (okay that really doesn't work when you spell it out, it's more effective verbally).
Looks like a "blizzard" to me. Can't say that I miss seeing that when I look out the window. I'm kind of spoiled down here when it comes to winter.
I don't mind a little snow but I hate the storms, blizzards, icy roads and blocked roads and the minus 20-35 degree weather with the wind chill at around 40 below..AS long as the sun shines and the wind doesn't blow- its not too bad. If I had a choice I would like to live where the weather is neither too hot or too cold.
For you holidayers-- have a nice trip home and be ready for a snow storm on your arrival home. Forecast for the weekend is snow and cold again.
Make the best of the time you have left! .Glad you have enjoyed it thus far.
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