mississaugasnow

I agree, when the pattern change is within days and looks like it has legs ill start to buy in. Today was making me wish for spring though. Blue skies, temperatures in the mid 40s.

Ill take that because at the very least we will get some alberta clippers to drop an inch or two of snow every few days. Ill gladly take a few inches of snow and freezing temperatures instead of this pattern

Not that it should matter since its going to be in mid to upper 40s by the weekend, but I'm barely missing an overachiever. Up to 4" in some spots in the northern GTA. Since this is the banter thread, at what point will you throw in the towel on the season? For me I have the towel out, but Ill wait another few weeks. If the end of January and beginning of February show no promise Ill start waving it and cheering on an early spring

This winter is starting to really remind me of 2011-2012. I must say I enjoy watching those that predicted a frigid winter with snow get more and more upset. I respect those that have said they messed up and didn't foresee this happening. But those that have now dug in even deeper and seem to be lashing out by promising a massive back end of winter have put all the chips on the table and if wrong have a lot of apologizing to do. (Not because of wrong forecast, I understand its difficult to forecast. The arrogance though that anyone mentioning warmth doesn't know what he/she is talking about is annoying) Ive noticed the weather network up here is slowly changing the wording on what they anticipate. It is now a "more winter like pattern is expected for February, but we have lower than normal confidence"

Do you guys think youll ever leave the imperial system? In Canada officially were metric but culture wise were a hybrid. When explaining your weight/height to someone here its imperial, when getting building supplies here you generally talk imperial. Road signs and weather are fully metric here in everyday conversation but people understand imperial weather measurements as well. Im 100% sure Canada would be as clueless about imperial as Australia, UK essentially the rest of the world if we werent as close geographically, culturally, historically to the US

I can see how they would do the mistake but its sloppy. 16C = 60F so thats how they got number. Using a very quick rule of thumb which isnt bang on, 16C above normal would be roughly 32F above normal. Thats an impressive heatwave to get departures like that. 16C below normal in Toronto right now would be highs around -18C or 0F and in the summer that would be highs around 42C or 107F

When I was there the hostels discussed tsunami risk a bit but it was one of those "Not much you can do". Indonesia and Thailand is where I thought about tsunamis a bit, thinking of highest spot I could get to fastest. Weirdly never really crossed my mind when I was in Cambodia/Vietnam/Malaysia Where are you thinking of going in Indonesia? I would recommend hiking Mount Bateur, Ubud monkey forest was cool and for the beach I ferried to the island of gili t. haha ferries over there is when I actually felt the most at risk. Little to no safety and older ships=my mind thinking how would I get out of this one

Assuming the full change out of this pattern is delayed by another 10-14 days, winter will really have to rock from mid-late January for about 6 weeks. Even then, we would need multiple monster storms hitting various parts of the sub for this winter to get a good grade. This is starting to feel like 2011-2012

maybe a sneaky half inch of snow later today/tonight. zzzz for the lower/eastern great lakes for the foreseeable future

Also want to point out im talking snowfall amounts. The 2nd half of winter appears to deliver some really cold air, just think that might lead to suppression city.

haha I know. However, if you were to use November-March as Torontos snowy months (October and April can sometimes surprise) then were quickly approaching the halfway mark of the winter season by the time the pattern changes. Toronto has seen roughly 8 inches of snow so far this year (none were substantial, just 1-2 inches at a time) We average 43-50" depending on your location within the city. So the season would have to really kick into gear hard and fast and deliver non stop storms for us to get close to normal. Reaching normal becomes especially hard the longer the snow drought continues since getting a 8"+ storm is very rare in the city. Not saying it wont happen, but sometime within the next few weeks it will start to become increasingly difficult mathematically to reach average. Unless of course we are starring down a 99-00 type season which had a bad December followed by historical amount of snow in the 2nd half of winter, so much so that the army had to be called in to help remove snow.

On the plus side my cottage is about to be under a winter storm watch for up to 6 inches of snow friday. I can always drive 3 hours north to find a winter wonderland

Looks like at least another 2-3 weeks of boring weather. Im then off to Arizona so everyone should expect a big snowstorm in mid January haha. Not ready to throw in the towel yet, but by late February/March it gets increasingly difficult for good snowstorm in the lower lakes so time is running out. And I know it can snow well into March/April but it quickly becomes elevation dependent in the GTA. Especially April.

Personally I want winter storms and winter weather until about March 15th. After that I want the switch flipped to 60s and sunny immediately. Very unrealistic but ah well

I still think that March 2012 was the biggest weather event Ive witnessed in my life. Trees were green and flowering shrubs and trees were in bloom by late March. At my cottage (Muskoka region of Ontario) when theres still normally 3 feet of snow and 20-30 inches of ice on the lake, there was no snow, all ice gone and spring peepers 6-8 weeks ahead of normal.

Interesting. Its like theres a no mans land between the two haha. From my travels across the eastern part of the continent southern Illinois thru southern Indiana-KY-WV-MD-DE all have qualities of south and north. KY and WV to me seem to have a lot more southern aspects of culture. One of my favorite indicators of the south is grits and accent. Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus and Indianapolis I hear little to no accent. Cincinnati, Lousiville, Charleston WV is where I hear the first southern accents and the menus all start adding grits prominently. To add my own experience with accents, when in Nashville they assumed pretty correctly that I was from the North East, but not from NYC or Boston. Dont mean to go way off topic, just a boring pattern right now and interested in this sort of stuff.

Recently drove down to Nashville and couldn't believe how far south Cincinnati felt. Weather wise Cincinnati has nothing in common with southern ontario/WNY/SE MI Which leads me to a question. When do you guys feel like you've entered the south? For me its Cincinnati, especially its Kentucky suburbs. Ive heard Cincinnati been referred to as the most southern northern city and the most northern southern city.

It is pretty crazy how much of a tightrope there is within this subforum. Its about a 250 mile swath of the region that experiences almost the best climate on the continent (depending on perspective) Normally 30+ inches of snow falls, decent cold but occasional thaws, pond hockey and winter activities can be done with some degree of difficulty. Summers average in the 80s with occasional heat waves. You drive just north of this region and its 7 months of winter and 2 months of summer and drive just south of this region and its 7 months summer and 2 months winter. The winner in my mind for best city is Buffalo NY/Fort Erie Ontario. Numerous snowstorms, and decent lake effect events. Spring/Fall is delayed by the surrounding lakes allowing for a more step up/step down to seasons. Summer is muggy and sometimes almost tropical feeling when Lake Erie gets to near 80F surface temps. Add to that-Buffalo has 1.5M people and two professional sports teams and Fort Erie is right across from Buffalo and roughly 45 minutes to a region (Toronto/Hamilton) with 8M people and 3 professional sports teams.

How does Nashville handle snow? Coming down this Thursday-Sunday for the Thursday night football game followed by spending the weekend seeing the city. Sorry to go off topic. It would be pretty funny if I came down from the Toronto area and while here see my biggest snowstorm of the year. Biggest storm for Toronto this year has been 4"

Alpena, MI (APN) 96" Chicago, IL (ORD) 39" Cleveland, OH (CLE) 41" Columbus, OH (CMH) 22" Detroit, MI (DTW) 50" Fort Wayne, IN (FWA) 31" Grand Rapids, MI (GRR) 70" Green Bay, WI (GRB) 45" Indianapolis, IN (IND) 17" La Crosse, WI (LSE) 35" London, ON (YXU) 80" Louisville, KY (SDF) 11" Marquette, MI (MQT) 200" Milwaukee, WI (MKE) 34" Minneapolis, MN (MSP) 55" Moline, IL (MLI) 40" Paducah, KY (PAH) 15" Peoria, IL (PIA) 26" St. Louis, MO (STL) 30" Toronto, ON (YYZ) 47" Tiebreakers 1. December 2018 snowfall ORD 4.1" 2. January 2019 snowfall IND 11" 3. February 2019 snowfall DTW 16"

I would consider this our first winter storm in the GTA. It was a widespread 3-7" snowfall.

A few totals from around GTA. Numerous reports of 3" in South Mississauga down by the lake. 4-5" in the northern part of the GTA. Currently at 4" here on Hamilton Mountain. Still a few hours left of snow to go for most on this side of the border so the storm will end up being about a 4-7" winter storm. I saw the traffic in NYC, what a disaster. Here it wasnt nearly as bad as that, but the local media is reporting a 50 minute commute took about 3 hours (Vaughan-Burlington for those that know the area)

Toronto/GTA is in a weird geographical spot for the boards. Not enough Canadian members to create our own subforum, so kind of split between this one and great lakes. Though climate wise and weather impact wise, have a lot more in common with Upstate/Eastern NY since GTA is only 60 miles from WNY and hundreds of miles from Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Missouri ect..

YYZ- 2.8" YHM-3.8" BUF-4.8" ROC- 5.3" SYR-9"

Ya, we already have one of the worst commute times in North America so adding any snow makes it a disaster out there. Not to go off topic that much but theres been discussion that the province makes snow tires mandatory. Quebec does this, I havent dived deeper into the data to see if it reduces accidents but I would imagine it does. A lot of the GTA drivers never leave the immediate city so they drive with all seasons. Last night with only a dusting of snow from Georgian Bay there were dozens of accidents on the local highways.