Here on the west coast we’ve been having an unusual winter. Normally we can expect perhaps 3 days of snow throughout the winter, and the white stuff might be on the ground for just over a week. This season, we had some snow as early as November and then have had numerous storms since. This has been accompanied by nearly a couple of dozen severe windstorms that have created havoc, especially the severe damage in Stanley Park.
The last was a set of snowstorms that ended last week; those days alone would have been a bad winter here. Not only did in snow multiple days, but after it stuck around while we had several days of -10C weather in the valley.
Yes, I know that doesn’t sound so severe to the rest of Canada and a lot of other places in the world; but during that week my sister was visiting. She has spent the past eight years living in Fort McMurray, AB; where -40 is quite common in winter (no conversion for this one, that is where the two scales meet!). Despite the cold, she has acclimatized and never wore anything as heavy as a proper winter jacket when working her outdoor jobs. When she was here was the first time she has had to use such a jacket in a long time, as the wet cold here chilled her to the bone.
But for almost two weeks now, it has been normal winter weather for us, which means above freezing with some rain and a lot of drizzle. The only signs of snow are the slight remnants of the piles in shopping mall parking lots that heavy machinery had earlier piled up to over ten feet tall. Yesterday was the sort of day that made you wish you didn’t have office windows, as the sun came out and warmed us up to 10C. Today was a day to be glad it was the weekend, as it was again 10C and the sun shone brightly.
I had to go out early this afternoon, so I actually pulled out my bike and road across town. The streets were crowded with pedestrians taking advantage of the weather. On the way back, I detoured through Mill Lake Park. It was like a spring day. Parents were pushing baby strollers, kids were running down the trails, dogs were pulling excited on their leashes, the ducks were walking across the lake….
I almost fell off my bike as I hit mud while distracted. I looked closely; the lake was still 98% frozen over, with just a couple of spots where the water had poked through and ducks could swim. On the rest of the lake, they were strolling across the ice. Considering it was half way to room temperature, and had been above freezing for quite some time; and since the lake only freezes over completely once every few years; just how deep did the ice get during the last cold snap?
