London snowsquall

Currently in prince Edward county west of Kingston ON just north of lake Ontario. Blizzard conditions most of the time. Son in law rescued local farmer lost in a nearby field. He was totally lost and disoriented. The local road in front of daughter's house is impassable with 5 ft. drifts. Top wind gust locally to 128kph. Here - this is definitely a blizzard.

Good area for squalls, but not as good as Owen Sound. The in-laws come from Midland - that's prime too. How much snow on the ground?

Where exactly are you located - north of Listowel? Always wondered....

Agreed. Seems there is occasional casual use of the terms blizzard or whiteout by some, for situations that do not come close to qualifying. A foot and a half of snow, wind gusts to 80mph and zero visibility for nine straight hours meant a blizzard of unique ferocity. Never seen anything since that has even come close. Eight people died here, including some who got lost in the storm and froze to death, and a family of 5 who died in their stranded vehicle waiting for rescue from the highway. I wonder how many on this board experienced this storm.

It snowed for a couple hours last night and then basically nothing for the night. It started up again around 6 this morning and has been going since then. We maybe have 5-10cms for the storm so far, so not a total fail. We are basically a synoptic wasteland here, so reading the comments from the Rochester/Syracuse folks it's easy to relate. The comments on here are great! I used to follow the Lakes subforum, but it's been highjacked by the Chicago weenies, so I think I'll spend a lot more time here. At least we can share LES futility sagas.

Congrats to the Toronto folks. Most snow storm forecasts for T.O. fail, so nice to see this deliver for you guys. Must be chaos there now. I can only imagine the 400 series highways right now.

A disappointment here in Ontario as well considering the hype and modelling. Flake size was small, snow started late and ended early. Fortunately we missed the sleet this far NW. Best action of this event has been this morning after the SLP was gone. L. Huron delivering with some N and NW winds. Good flake size and some blowing. Maybe some of you can cash in on these winds from L. Ontario later on.

The storm here was a disappointment, similar to just about everyone east of the Detroit river. Late getting started, shut off early, and poor flake size. Missed out on the sleet tho'... Seems that LE has started up recently, and is the best snow of the whole event. Maybe you guys south of the lake can get some too. Good luck.

Thanks for the comment. The snow is still coming down but intermittent at times. I'll have to go outside and shovel/snow blow again soon, but I'll take a measuring stick with me. I would guess every winter since 2010 has been below what was our normal seasonal total of 80". The local weather office has stopped giving official yearly snow totals so I can't verify and I don't keep track myself - just my hunch. I would think you would benefit off a NW wind with some moisture in it, no??

LES has been mostly terrible this season (and a few years running) up until last night. With the NW winds we have picked up at least a foot since last night and it's been intermittently snowing most of the day so not sure what the final total will be. The HHRR model run from 00z Friday morning picked up on the big potential. Finally looks like mid-winter.

I'm also from London. We probably got about a foot. It will likely compact to a couple of inches it's so fluffy, but at least it looks like winter. The LES events don't happen like they used to here, so I can relate to the pain expressed on this regional forum. I usually lurk on the Lakes forum and don't post much but come over here fairly regularly to see if you guys are making out better than us. I keep wasting time following synoptic snow threats that fizzle to nothing or give a whopping inch or two, but I can't seem to help myself. Weather addiction at play.......

Getting a more northerly flow would certainly be nice. The last event missed us to the north just like most of the Ohio posters.

Agreed. Approx. 280-310 would work very nicely. I've seen enough of the SWerlys over the last couple of years.....

Round 2 in the cards this weekend? If it's 320-330 up here I may miss this one to the west. I do live on the west side of the city, so I may luck out....

Thanks. How much do you have there? You and I usually feast or more often famine as I think you are south of the lake no? We both need some northerly wind component or for the most part we're getting nothing of note.

Thanks. Your totals are considerably higher than here, but it's nice that both areas have finally got some LES. It's been a long wait.

Finally got some snow here as well from L. Huron. Last night I was a bit pissed last night when you Ohio guys were getting it and we were shut out, but Huron finally delivered and it's still snowing now. Probably 8+"

It's getting kinda ridiculous. To date with this event, the London airport has recorded SWerly winds for most of the past 24 hours with a lone hrly observation of WNW. It's been snowing for the past 24 hours and I'm not sure we have 3 inches of accumulation. Pretty lame considering this was supposed to be multi-period NWerlys. Maybe still to come??

Thanks go out to OHweather from me as well for the detailed posts. I always enjoy reading your writeups about LES. Very informative and detailed. Maybe we can get a reasonably good event out of this. If we do well in London SE of Huron, DTA and Trent should do OK as well. EC is now mentioning a few periods in the next few days of possible squalls here, so let the games begin.

Only 20" for the season across the lake in London as of yesterday alto' we are picking up some good stuff now on NW winds. If winds stay NW for a few hours as fcst maybe we can get a bit more. NW winds might help you guys too.

Thanks. You're right about the LES. We have certainly cashed in at various times, so no sense in whining too much...... I'm not enough of a met. expert to know why the winds have been so much out of the SW with these events. I can certainly understand the wind direction from the west, and the area just to my north in any normal winter gets a whole pile more than London, but maybe OHweather can chime in with an explanation. Maybe bad luck, maybe an element of GW - I don't know. I know it's not just my imagination for 3 straight winters now...

No worries there. Nice to have you back - I thought maybe you were done with London. I've watched the radar for 2 wks and saw the area 30 miles north get pounded over and over again, and watched the snow die as it approaches London, so how much worse can it get if you want the snow?? Maybe you'll be a snow magnet..... I think I'll follow the Ohio LES folks more closely. We seem to share in a lot of the same sort of successes and failures with LES and vainly looking at the winds to take on some sort of northern orientation. I can give them advance warning when they are going to be screwed over.

I feel your pain........... grass tips still showing here. Probably an inch or two at best over the last week. The winds are NWerly for the top half of L. Huron and then go straight westerly or SWerly down by me - been watching this go on for almost 3 years. The occasional LES event drops a few inches but nothing seems able to lock in the good winds for any length of time with the other favourable parameters req'd. We get NWerlys in March which do jack-----.