Canadian Prairie Weather Query - 4 January 2012

[dewline]

Figuring that tartysuz, opaqueplanet and a few others might have a better clue about this one.

I'm hearing about a heat wave in the prairie provinces right now that's been leaving places like Calgary warmer than Dallas! That prospect scares me more than a bit for any number of reasons that, say, a cold-snap hitting Saskatoon for the better part of a month three years back as of this month would not.

To everyone in prairie Canada reading this right now: how's everything going for you weather-wise, if you're willing to share publicly about the subject?

Comments

[tartysuz.livejournal.com]

It's 10 C in Edmonton! That's 18 C higher than average or this time of year:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Edmonton+winter+missing+action/5942160/story.html

There has been very little snow -- it rained on Christmas Day -- and the south of Alberta is so dry, there are wildfires.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/edmonton/High+winds+close+highways+flames+Southern+Alberta/5947291/story.html

This is all highly unusual. It's somewhat pleasant, but people are worried that lack of snow cover will contribute to a drought.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Rain. On Christmas.

In Edmonton.

OMFrakkingG.

While I've gotten almost used to that happening on occasion here in Ottawa, I still react with this: "Edmonton???"

And yes, I've seen the reports about the wildfires you speak of on CBC Newsworld. And was deeply disturbed by same. I am not surprised to see the drought speculation starting at this relatively early stage.

Disturbed. Not surprised.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Apparently parts of Canada are warmer than we are in central Florida right now. We had a hard freeze last night and are dropping to freezing again as I type, although we should be warming up by the weekend.

The cats think it's my fault.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

In answer to your cats: if you do have any blame in this, it is surely not yours alone!

Finding Alberta warmer than various parts of Florida, Arizona and Texas...is just not right. While I'll be going out to shovel the front walk and driveway shortly after typing this paragraph - we had a "normal" snowfall here in Ottawa last night - we're also expecting to creep just over the freezing mark in the next couple of days.

Every time in January that sort of over-zero-Celsius situation kicks in around here, I keep thinking the "Ethical Oil" crowd should just clam up and shut down.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

As I type, it's 3 degrees Celsius here.

Mind you, central Florida has always had its cold snaps -- usually a couple days in the single digits (Celsius) in January, more rarely freezes. Since I've moved here, however, we've had hard freezes every year, snow a couple years back (which hits Orlando every twenty years or so) and this year an abnormally warm December followed by a hard freeze again.

It's supposedly going to warm up this weekend.

But it's partly this cold that made me so outraged that Santorum is running around announcing that we need to ban birth control because it's immoral. No, Santorum, the immoral thing right now, in the U.S., is _having large families._ Yes, I am a big, big believer in reproductive freedom for women (which includes the right to have kids), and we may not be overpopulated compared to other parts of the world, but every single child born in the U.S. right now is going to be using a lot of fossil fuel and eating food nourished with nitrates.

I had two separate people tell me that they popped out into the ocean/Gulf of Mexico last week and had never seen so many cnidarians/ctenophores (jellyfish). Encourage the damn birth control, Santorum.

(Wow. I got off subject and ranted there. Sorry.)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

No, I think you remained on topic, pretty much. Ranting or not. Apology was unnecessary, therefore not accepted. ;-)

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Some of us here in Tucson are a bit alarmed, too, as this is the time of year when we're anticipating below-freezing overnights and moderately chill days, and we're getting April daytimes and overnights instead.

If this translates further into the year, it's going to be a summer in Hell for us.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Yikes! :-(