snowstormcanuck

Hey Roger, Nice effort on your part. Would you happen to have your data in Excel format to make it sortable/filterable? Pity the station ceased operations in 2017. At least we have record of those insane winters of the 19th century, whatever their explanation is.

https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/03/ontario-orders-the-mandatory-closure-of-all-non-essential-workplaces-to-fight-spread-of-covid-19.html Ontario ordering all "non-essential" businesses to close by tomorrow at 11:59 pm. A list of what constitutes "non-essential" will be released tomorrow. Apparently Quebec is doing the same thing. Cases have been rising here but still no exponential growth, so maybe this is the right time to get strict. Better to be proactive than reactive.

How does that make the U.S. more to the left? By funneling the money through E.I. and other indirect programs, it's a way for the government to means/needs test it. Otherwise, potentially, you'd get wealthier people who don't need the money getting gov't assistance.

Crazy what a difference a few hundred miles can make. Bone dry up here. ~1.25" for the month.

Beautiful looking morning. Everything caked in white, even though it's just an inch of snow. Unfortunately March diurnal effects will stop the accumulation soon, and probably flip us to rain. Based on qpf, this would have been a 6" er in Feb.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-experts-say-new-symptoms-could-be-loss-taste-or-smell-11961439 Would like to see other sources also claiming that loss of smell and taste are symptoms of covid 19, but if true that could be helpful in identifying the otherwise asymptomatic carriers.

Ours have kind of leveled off, 40-60 per day it seems. I'm sure Ontario won't get off that unscathed, but at least temporary good news.

Hopefully winter's last hurrah tonight. Maybe a couple of stat padding slushy inches.

Pretty grateful at a time like this I'm pretty much already a social recluse. The transition to the new regime has been seamless.

Optimism

Toronto's chief medical officer of health said there's almost certainly evidence of community transmission now. The gentleman who died in Halton contracted in through community transmission too. So, yeah, be optimistic but also be vigilant.

There's supposed to be lag between when the lockdown measures were implemented and when the death/infection rate would start to decline. But, it's been two weeks, I think? Very discouraging.

All evidence points to the mortality rate being substantially higher than the flu. The reason for these drastic social distancing measures isn't to prevent the spread. That is inevitable. I've read estimates up to 80 percent of the population will be infected eventually. The social distancing is in place to slow the spread so that the healthcare system can cope with those who will unfortunately need hospitalization, to build capacity (beds, ventilators, etc), and to maybe develop a vaccine or effective treatment plan. It's about buying time. There's no way that will be accomplished in a couple of weeks.

"Jane Heffernan, the director of York University’s Centre for Disease Modelling, would not predict how long she believes shutting down schools and working from home could last. But she acknowledged she has seen studies suggesting it could be months to two years, including a study from Imperial College in London that predicts social distancing could continue for 12 to 18 months. " Humans being social creatures, that worse case scenario seems like it's going to be very hard to do. And, that's just social distancing; imagine a prolonged period of more severe restrictions, like shelter-in-place/lockdown.

2nd death reported here in Ontario, and 43 new cases, which is the largest daily increase thus far. The 2nd person who died apparently contracted the virus via community transmission.

A corollary of coronavirus has been the turmoil in the stock markets. If you've got cash sitting in the bank and you've got the stomach for it, a lot of blue-chippers are trading at a steep discount. It feels a little exploitative to even mention it, but hey, that's capitalism.

Not sure if it's been posted, but I've been checking this site semi-regularly for the past week: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Hopefully some good karma for you.

I was at Mel Lastman Square for lunch today. The tables in the food court are still there, but a lot of the chairs have been removed to encourage people to sit far apart. Non-essential municipal employees in Toronto (including myself) off until April 5, subject to some possible rotational work. Wake me up around 10:30 am tomorrow

Maybe for people but even the most stringent lockdowns in Europe (Spain, Italy) I think allow for people to go out for groceries and for food to be delivered. You pay on your app and the guy leaves it on your porch. It seems way down the list of ways to pass this virus on.

Toronto forcing dine-in restaurants to close. Could face $25k/day fine if defiant. Thank god we live in an era of Uber eats.

Lol

Yeah, I'd go with Feb 2013 over Jan 2019, but just barely, for snow storm of the decade. Actually, the ice storm trumps both imo.

But the wind component for blizzard criteria was non-existent in that storm.

I checked...it doesn't look like it. Unless I'm looking at the wrong storm.