Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Boxing Day Storm

It was a sharply cold morning today with temperatures at -16C at my home on Ile Perrot. I did not expect it to be that cold, add to that a west breeze approaching 20km/h and the air had an edge to it. Ok I am ready for summer now! I used my new snow blower and we are guaranteed a white Christmas so all is well, it can now warm up to 25 or 30C. On that note, in the irony department, places like Washington and Richmond, Virginia as well as large parts of North Carolina will have a white Christmas, while Buffalo, snow capital of North America has no snow cover at all and Burlington, Vermont only has a thin layer on the ground. Bizzaro Christmas!

A weak disturbance today will provide the area with a couple of centimetres of snow into Wednesday. While the accumulations will be minimal, the roads are icing up due to the cold. It should be very pleasant Thursday and Christmas Day with mild temperatures and sunny skies. The weather then becomes a challenge for traveling in Ontario and Quebec late Christmas Day and Boxing Day. As the storm develops over Texas and lifts into the Great Lakes, precipitation will overspread the region. It will begin as snow and then change to freezing rain and eventually rain in southwest Ontario and parts of upstate New York. It appears at this time, and we are several days out, that there will be an extended period of freezing rain possibly dare I say even an ice storm. But as I said, it is still days away and the track remains quite uncertain. There is also the likelihood of another low pressure area developing along the east coast of the US which would complicate the forecast, especially for us here in the St. Lawrence Valley. Stay tuned...but count on decent travel to your destinations, it just may be the return home that is complicated.

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