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Southern Ontario Winter '13/'14 Discussion


harrisale

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Thread for specific Southern Ontario and Greater Toronto Area discussion, obs, historical chat and local meterologist critiques ;)

 

The intention here is to keep some of the chatter out of the other threads which out-of-region posters likely don't want to bother reading. Of course we can still contribute to the other threads, but if it's something you think anyone outside of Ontario wouldn't be interested in, let's keep it here. No real 'rules', use your own discretion.

 

Metric system encouraged!

 

Of course being the true north strong and free, anyone can feel free to post here if you think it's relevant.

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For the inaugural post in this thread, how about that Environment Canada bust last night? I'm not sure anyone received the 5-10cm that was called for in the special weather statement.

 

There was about 1.5cm on the ground when I woke up this morning.

Yeah, Environment Canada did bust, but it's a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Suppose they hadn't called for anything and 5-10cm had materialized.

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Yeah, Environment Canada did bust, but it's a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Suppose they hadn't called for anything and 5-10cm had materialized.

 

True I suppose it was worth mentioning, although model support aside from the RGEM seemed to be lacking. Fault could also have been with the media, who really made no mention of the "if" potential with this system and jumped all over the high end potential.

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I think in general the media's misrepresentation of EC's forecasts hurts EC's reputation more than EC's forecasts themselves. Just my two cents on that matter.

Agree. The Special Weather Statement should have been worded better in order to avoid misrepresentation.

It's a lock that this month will finish up below normal. It's only a matter of how cold the month finishes. This will be the 3rd straight below normal month for Pearson Airport (YYZ).

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I didn't start the thread but I would be okay adding SEMI and WNY to the title since Detroit and Buffalo are both major cities that border Southern Ontario. 

 

Ha this is getting tricky already. Original intention was actually just a Greater Toronto Area thread so I think I'm going to leave it as is for now.

 

Like I said though, anyone can post here if they want. No limitations.

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Yeah, Environment Canada did bust, but it's a kind of "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Suppose they hadn't called for anything and 5-10cm had materialized.

 

Suppose a meteor fell out of the sky and demolished Toronto and no one had warned us about it. You have to play the probabilities. There was no justification for yesterday's forecast.

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Suppose a meteor fell out of the sky and demolished Toronto and no one had warned us about it. You have to play the probabilities. There was no justification for yesterday's forecast.

 

I don't see the big deal. They said flurries at time heavy with local amounts of 5-10cm. Local amounts are never a guarantee, it was not issued as widespread. Most places did see flurries, although those "local amounts" were not hit here.

 

A special weather statement was issued in case the band came on shore, which it didn't, but no warnings or watches were issued. The RGEM had it coming onshore, and it's "our model," so I can understand them at least putting up an advisory, just in case.

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I don't see the big deal. They said flurries at time heavy with local amounts of 5-10cm. Local amounts are never a guarantee, it was not issued as widespread. Most places did see flurries, although those "local amounts" were not hit here.

 

A special weather statement was issued in case the band came on shore, which it didn't, but no warnings or watches were issued. The RGEM had it coming onshore, and it's "our model," so I can understand them at least putting up an advisory, just in case.

 

 

When EC uses "local amounts" for snowfall accumulations, the same rules apply as if it were a non-qualified accumulation. There has to be a likelihood of the amounts verifying. In the case of local accumulations, in contrast to widespread accumultations, it's likely that a portion of the of geographic forecast zone gets those amounts, but not all of it. There's still a probabilistic component that has to be met.

 

In the case of yesterday, it was NEVER likely that ANY part of Toronto would receive 5-10cm of snow. It was remote chance at best. But because they put it in their forecast you get the general public into hysterics about a pending snowstorm (anecdotal but my mom called me yesterday and used the phrase "snow storm" because of what the tv told her). It's irresponsible to see one RGEM run and base your whole forecast on that. They're terrible.

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Ha this is getting tricky already. Original intention was actually just a Greater Toronto Area thread so I think I'm going to leave it as is for now.

 

Like I said though, anyone can post here if they want. No limitations.

Sounds good. Driving by the credit river the last couple weeks I have noticed that there is a barge and a excavator. Its breaking up the river ice at the mouth of the harbour that much is for sure. It may be drudging but I haven't seen it in action yet. Has anyone else noticed this in other rivers around the GTA? I have never seen this before in my 15 years in south Mississauga 

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When EC uses "local amounts" for snowfall accumulations, the same rules apply as if it were a non-qualified accumulation. There has to be a likelihood of the amounts verifying. In the case of local accumulations, in contrast to widespread accumultations, it's likely that a portion of the of geographic forecast zone gets those amounts, but not all of it. There's still a probabilistic component that has to be met.

 

In the case of yesterday, it was NEVER likely that ANY part of Toronto would receive 5-10cm of snow. It was remote chance at best. But because they put it in their forecast you get the general public into hysterics about a pending snowstorm (anecdotal but my mom called me yesterday and used the phrase "snow storm" because of what the tv told her). It's irresponsible to see one RGEM run and base your whole forecast on that. They're terrible.

I agree with you on this.

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Wind chill warnings issued again. "Snow" forecast now, with drifting.

 

Getting real tired of these wind chills especially since I don't have a car. This is the 4th warning this year for Waterloo Region, and before 2014 we only had four issued between 2006-13 - in '07, '08, and '09. 

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This seems to be a generally good idea, to have an Ontario sub-forum.

 

Now we just need some weather. Just the extreme cold makes this spell interesting enough, snow or no snow.

 

Lake Huron is getting very chilly and this could limit squall production but there are bound to be some blizzard-like squall bands setting up in the wake of the two upcoming waves. The 1971 event that I mentioned yesterday tracked across Georgian Bay and gave Sudbury about 20 cm of synoptic not lake effect snowfall before unleashing the mega-squall bands. Some of this upcoming guidance is starting to look a bit more like the 1971 set-up. That had also been quite a cold winter and Lake Huron must have been about the same temperature then as now.

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Getting real tired of these wind chills especially since I don't have a car. This is the 4th warning this year for Waterloo Region, and before 2014 we only had four issued between 2006-13 - in '07, '08, and '09. 

 

I haven't had much of a problem with it. Being from the west coast, temperatures below -5C are extremely rare, so I'm not accustomed to this type of cold. However, it really isn't that bad. It's dry and as long as you are sheltered from the wind and dressed with appropriate layering, you can barely tell that it's the temperature you see on the thermometer. Living downtown I find that I'm very sheltered from the wind (and from the worst of the cold). I don't take the wind chill warnings very seriously.

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