Thursday 10 December 2009

Muskoka Winter Snow Squalls






Well, isn't the snow a shock?! It just keeps on falling.
Here is yesterday

and today.

Do you know the difference between a snow shower and a snow flurry, blowing snow and a snow squall, a blizzard, snow pellets and snow grains and ice pellets? I do. You can find wind speed terms, too. But I digress.

I looked it up at Environment Canada's information page. What, snowbound, bored, me?
After navigating our way into Gravenhurst for appointments...whew, what a drive home.

I shovelled the deck for the umpteenth time, really to appease the cats who need to get under the cottage or they terrorize us and each other in their cat ways: chasing, hunting, pouncing. We play with them, provide cat toys, a huge empty box, and try to keep them amused, but when they look out and see their mouse friends...all heck breaks loose!

The lake has disappeared. But I kept on shovelling the deck as the mourning dove looked rather... mournful. She likes the cracked corn in the bucket and as long as I am there she simply watches me. She didn't move at all, I was just below her on the deck, as she waited patiently for me to leave.

 Weather is a darned important item to those in Muskoka. With many in the sales, service, or other industries, workers often travel for work. In Gravenhurst today, one store clerk told me that Environment Canada had actually sent a reporter! Whoo, hoo!

But do you think I can find out how much snow we've had, officially? NOPE.
On a day like this, with Muskoka having a predicted 15 - 25 cm  snowsqualls, on top of the same amount yesterday, and more expected today, I keep wondering where I can find information on the total amount of snowfall for this past month.


On the snow.com offers some data, for ski resorts, but shows that Horseshoe Resort, Huntsville, for example, has a base depth of 12" (30 cm) , and no new snow in the last 72 hours. Hmf! I've shovelled that mus snow today.

Muskoka Airport houses the weather sensing data for Environment Canada, but no quick info source.
Next, I went to Canadian Snowfall Amounts at Ask.com.

Nipissing University's Weather Lab  has a ton of information, with photos of weather equipment, dated 2002.


This is an interesting site: Wunderground, while US-based, has decent weather coverage. A bit busy for me for a linked badge. But some may like it!

Visit: WebCams in Muskoka  and the Ministry of Transportation's: Ontario Winter Road Conditions


Online is my choice for information. TV and radio really help, but the major TV stations leave us out. You can find data on the jet stream. Click here for my posts: the First Snow of the Fall, 2009, season!
The Dec. 4th/5th weekend, our 2nd major snowfall.Then, on December 9th and 10th we had another load of snow.  Happy shovelling, if you are in such climes!

7 comments:

Lucy said...

I think this is our payback for the mild fall we had! (And here we thought the mild fall was payback because we had such a late spring!)

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

I know exactly how much snow you have, "Lots" that is how much. We in NE Oklahoma have "None."

I hope that helps.

Seriously people who live in the "gaps" have a hard time finding weather info sometimes.

Gaelyn said...

OMG Jenn, the cat on the rail is almost gone. Sorry you had to venture out in this, but I'm sure the kittys and dove are glad you did.

Isn't surfing the web fun.

Vagabonde said...

I have never lived in a snow area as yours – I don’t know if I could now after having lived in the deep south so long. For example yesterday it was 68 F (20 C) and today it went down to 48 F (9 C) so I wore my heavy coat and turned the heater full blast in the car – and I was cold… But the snow does look so beautiful – I wish we would have at least one day of it like last year.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Jenn: You can certainly get a lot of snow with the lake effect snow machine working overtime. Stay warm and safe.

Judy said...

Hi, Jenn, http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-118_metric_e.html
will give you the weather for Ottawa/Kanata, and maybe you can search an area close to you. At the bottom of the page, there is the history, meaning yesterday's numbers. I just multiply the precip amount by 10 and it gives me a rough idea of snowfall.
Hope that helps!

Jenn Jilks said...

Thanks, Judy, I found this page, but on the Muskoka page, you'll notice there isn't a total as of 9:11 a.m. today, Friday! Maybe they will update it?!
The daily data report, at this point, show no data for the snow on the ground!