Snowstorms

Experienced a once in a lifetime ice storm in Dec 2013. Was also the coldest winter on record in more than 25 years in my neck of the woods. Apparently parts of Manitoba were colder than the surface of Mars that winter. Feb 2015 however was the coldest month ever recorded in Toronto. I wouldn't mind a repeat of 2013-14 or 2008-09. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto-ice-storm-2013-photos-from-the-gtas-winter-nightmare

This will likely continue strengthening through next week. That warm pool has an eerie resemblance to 2013-14 but at the same time it also concedes with a strengthening -PDO. Early guess would be 2013-14/2008-09 and 2017-18 blend using the most recent Nina years. La Nina's can transition into winter pretty quickly. Just ask Denver next week.

Most recent MEI value (JJ) was -1.0 which is borderline moderate La Nina. The new value for JA may come in higher as we've seen more progressive cooling across all ENSO regions through-out this month. Further cooling should continue over the next few weeks as a strong trade wind burst is expected next week esp over western ENSO regions. The new MEI v2 uses 5 variables compared to the old MEI which used 6. I prefer MEI as it takes into consideration all ENSO regions compared to ONI.

3.33" this month so far at YYZ but that number is deceiving. 3.1" of that fell in 3 days earlier this month. In reality only 4.2" has fallen since July 12th. Models are showing couple thunderstorm risks tomorrow and the chance for more steadier rain Friday night into Sat morning. Let's see if that verifies. Been dry as hell.

Nina winters with some NAO blocking are epic, i.e. 55-56, 64-65, 70-71, 95-96, 08-09 and 10-11.

They've made masks mandatory in all indoor settings including apartments and condominiums (public areas). Gyms and fitness centers finally opened up after being closed for nearly 5 months. I believe they're contemplating on keeping that US-Canada border closed until December.

Got ~25mm yesterday in my area with that storm cell. Better chance this weekend for some more widespread thunderstorms. We'll need to watch the "tropical" storm coming up the east coast and where it tracks and how it interacts with the low coming in from the Midwest. That will determine where the thunderstorms develop over the weekend.

Need some serious rain. Only 0.3" since June 10th. Spring was dry too. Grass is literally toast out here.

The ONI is more widely used to categorize ENSO events, but I prefer MEI as it takes into consideration more variables. The 2010-11 La Nina was the last strong Nina event. The coldest anomalies were centered around Region 1+2 and 3 as opposed to Region 4, atleast in the beginning. So there is a chance we could see a pretty healthy La Nina event if the upwelling continues. Haven't dug deep into this year's ENSO event but will be doing so over the next few weeks. Your posts are always informative, great work!

When I went grocery shopping last week, I saw numerous bottles of hand sanitizer. It was sold out everywhere prior to that. Limit was 2, so I grabbed 2 lol. Now we wait for Lysol and/or Clorox wipes to be restocked.

Did you see that video of him putting a mask on?

3-15K alone is devastating but 100K is just catastrophic. We've seen over 400 cases a day now for the last few days. Apparently were not testing as vigorously as other countries are so that number could be a lot higher. Correct me if I'm wrong tho. I don't know if you've heard but some family in Brampton got fined 100K for throwing a "party" despite Ford prohibiting gatherings of more than 5 people. My WFH got extended till May 1 now and I suspect it may get extended again as we approach the end of the month. April will be a rough month but if these social distancing measures are increasingly forced, then May can end up a lot better.

Ohh, makes sense! Thanks for that. Do you think Ford needs to issue a mandatory stay at home order?

A friend of mine used to work at an Asian grocery store about a decade ago. He used to tell me how much they all smoked. I think it was a pack a day or something close to that.

They've got the army ready to deploy in case the Federal Government issues a mandatory order for people to stay at home. There was a lot of people walking around ignoring social-distancing yesterday lol. Tbh, I think that order is necessary because some people are still taking this very lightly. I'm working from home till the end of April now.

Now I'm not going to single out an entire race, but the article below is pretty messed up. This is a nation wide problem. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-markets-selling-bats.html I believe this is more than a political issue. It's a societal issue which stems from old traditions that they've continued to carry on till this very day.They still haven't learned their lesson yet despite SARS and Corona. Strangely enough they're now blaming USA for deliberately bringing the virus to China which according to them, started in Italy. It really can't get much worse than that lol.

I go once a week to get groceries but like you said, it's risky. That online grocery shopping has some risks too. What if the delivery person has symptoms or if the products have the virus on them. Now thats obviously stretching it but I've become cautious with everything now lol. 211 new cases in ON today. No signs of it slowing down so far.

More unfortunate news coming out of Europe today. 889 new deaths in Italy, 674 in Spain, 260 in UK and 319 in France. One can only hope this starts slowing down soon but it doesn't seem like it. I don't think summer will have any profound impacts on this virus.

They've closed all parks, facilities, trails and beaches in Toronto too. On-top of that, anyone travelling back to the country will need to self-isolate themselves for 14 days or face being charged or arrested. I don't know how they're going to enforce this but this should've been done a week ago. I heard Trump wants to put troops along the Canadian-US Border. Is that true?

Really? The interest should be waived too. Its not like people are sitting at home because they want to. Isn’t EI only 55% of your avg insurable weekly earnings?

Schools depend on the province. For now schools in Ontario are closed until April 6th. Universities and colleges have moved the remainder of the semester online. I'm not sure about final exams though. I haven't heard anything about $950 every two weeks lol. Canadians are eligible to apply for EI (employment insurance) if they've been laid off or if they're in self isolation. The waiting period has been waived. The mortgage part is true but there's some controversy going on as the banks are being difficult about it. Canadians with federal student loans are getting a break on loan and interest payments for the next 6 months. They've also announced property tax deferrals but that's based upon on each municipality’s discretion. They've also temporarily suspended rental evictions to those who can't pay their monthly rent.

Quebec has closed all shopping malls, schools and restaurant dining rooms until May 1. Total cases in Quebec have climbed up to 219 as of today.

The last couple of days have been really bad in Italy. Just horrible. Hoping for the best in the coming weeks.

58 new cases today. People continue to travel and go outside their homes for non-essential things. Until that stops, this won't stop spreading. I'm working from home till mid April. I have a feeling that'll likely get extended till May and perhaps even our schools and other businesses. It ceases to amaze me that some people think this is some sort of conspiracy. Nobody is gaining anything from this.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think we have any vaccine for SARS. If we do discover a vaccine for this virus, plus all the R&D and testing, it likely won't be mass distributed until next Winter. Very tragic to hear whats happening in Europe. Until things can calm down and revert back to normal in Europe, we will likely stay in lockdown mode here in North America. Swine flu back in 2009 was pretty bad too on a global scale. If people can abide by the rules and self isolate themselves, we can work together as a society to control the spread.