Snowfall Tally for Ottawa Airport – Up to Winter 2009-2010

Winter 2008-2009 Snowfall for Ottawa, Ont.

Here is a table Showing the past 3 winters by month, using  Environment Canada data for the Ottawa Airport.  There hasn’t been measurable amounts of snow in June in the past 20 years of data.  Data revised as per EC Climate Data Online Monthly Observation Data -June 24, 2009.

Source: Environment Canada Climate Data Online. 

	Snowfall by Month plus YTD Current
		08-09/06-07		08/09-07/08
		Snowfall in mm
	2006-2007	+/-	2007-2008	+/-	2008-2009
Jul	0.0		0.0		0.0
Aug	0.0		0.0		0.0
Sep	0.0		0.0		0.0
Oct	0.2	11.0	0.0	11.2	11.2
Nov	0.6	24.6	59.8	(34.0)	25.8
Dec	27.6	57.6	121.0	(35.8)	85.2
Jan	31.4	49.0	42.4	38.4	80.8
Feb	30.6	(15.8)	89.9	(74.5)	15.4
Mar	31.6	(28.4)	113.4	(110.2)	3.2
Apr	28.4	(24.0)	6.2	(1.8)	4.4
May	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Jun	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total	150.4	282.3	432.7	(206.7)	226.0

August was normal?

So as far as August weather goes, we had 16 days of precipitation as measured at the Ottawa Airport although I know in my area there were days, where there was rain at the airport and closer to where I live, when we didn’t have anything.  So the total as shown in the EC Climate Database was 74 mm where the average August is 87.1 mm.  A second “drier” month, distribution was wider spread which stuck it to the farmers trying to get a hay crop in.

Temperature wise our highest temperature was 29.2 C (Average 24.8) and a lowest temperature of 8 C (Average 13.4).  No in September we’ve had a string of 30 C days – the months are backwards.

Our Non Summer of 2008

In my post of August 1, I noted that we’ve had a long wet cool summer so far. “How Wet is it…” .  So now one third of the way through the month of August and we’ve had one day without precipitation.  We got to 27.2 c once on the 4th but the mean temperature is 21.1 c.   The 14 day trend forecast isn’t very promising with 5 days of potential rain and high temperatures maybe getting above 25c maybe twice.  No “Bermuda Highs” giving us 30 plus days in the next two weeks.  So much for swimming in warm waters to cool off, just step outside enjoy a walk in the wonderful summer rain.

The Adventures of the Schooner Niska

My cousin George or “GeeGnome” recently retired from working the rails.  He got a bit restless and seized an opportunity to crew abord the Schooner Niska

As GeeGnome writes “

For the last month or so I have been a crew member on the schooner Niska traveling from Georgian Bay to her new home in Twillingate NL. The boat was built 35 years ago by the skipper Heiko Bank and has plied the waters in and around Georgian Bay where he lived and chartered until his move to Newfoundland a few years ago. Now he’s come back to fetch his boat and take it to Twillingate where he owns a B&B called the Rumrunners Roost. She’s 60′ spar length, 13+ beam, 25 ton, fiberglass on wood, replica of east coast staysail schooners designed and built by the skipper. She has a very reliable 65 hp Perkins Deisel for power. This is not your turn on a dime space ship dinky toy power boat. No joystick operated, voice activated bow thrusters. It’s basically 1850’s tech with only a few modern additions.

We have managed to get the schooner from Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, St.Clair River, Lake St.Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, Lake Ontario, the Seaway system, the St.Lawrence River to Montreal where he is regrouping for the rest of the trip. She’s made it halfway and has another thousand miles to go. We’ve sailed and motored through, mishaps and misfortunes, trials and tribulations but surmounted all and sailed her gloriously through these magnificent Great Lakes and waterways covering a thousand miles. It’s a grand adventure in a seat of the pants old school way.”

To read part 1 of the adventure read here http://gwcollins.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/the-voyage-of-the-tall-ship-niska/

The adventure continues……

How Wet is it in Ottawa so far this summer

Here at the beginning of August we can look back at the months of June and July and see that we’ve had rain on 22 of 30 days with 106.6 mm rain as compared to normal rain of 85 mm for June and for July we had 17 of 31 days of rain but only 64.2 mm of rain as compared to normal rain of 90.6.  June was wetter than normal but July was drier.  The frequency just made it seem that there was more rain.

Where’s the long hot summer

With Summer just over a month old we have to wonder what’s with all this rain.  In June we had 22 days with rain of some sort for a total of 106.6 mm where the average has been 91.2 mm.  So far this July we’ve had around 61.8 mm where the average is 88.9 mm with rain falling 12 of 24 days.

So where are we going and why is this happening.  The latest explanation from Envrionment Canada is that the jet stream is sitting in the wrong place, it’s running on a line through Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal and it should be up near James Bay.  So the boundary of the jet stream is where you have the collisions of the colder northern air and the warm tropical air and voila – unstable conditions and frequent rain and active weather.  The earlier explanation was that the nights have been warmer so that’s brought up the degree days overall.

Is this global warming?   Is it part of a normal recurring cycle?  We will only have the answer in a historical context.

We still have August to go through and if memory serves me correctly, we can expect hotter times ahead and we may be looking back at these moderate temperatures with fond memories.  For me the only bad thing about this weather is the lack of sunshine, it brightens our spirits.  Are there cases of S.A.D. out there?  (Seasonal Affected Disorder) Do we need to bulk up on vitamin D to keep us going?

At least it isn’t snow.

Ottawa, seems a bit cool so far this year but….

2008 has been an interesting year for weather in Ottawa. Many days you just have to wait a bit and you get a completely different type of weather. It has been cool lately and it doesn’t feel like it’s getting close to summer. Looking at the temperature extremes for each month we can see that it really hasn’t been all that warm. So far this year we have reached 26 as our highest temperature and -24.5 as our lowest temperature.

Jan	10.9	(24.5)
Feb	7.0	(24.1)
Mar	10.2	(17.7)
Apr	26.0	(7.8)
May	24.4	(1.8)
Extreme	26.0	(24.5

We would think that things are quite warm but in reality I’d say that we are closer to the daily average temperatures so far this month.

The Daily Average, Maximum and Minimum temps are:

	Daily Avg	Daily Max	Daily Min
Jan	(10.8)	(6.1)	(15.3)
Feb	(8.7)	(4.1)	(13.3)
Mar	(2.5)	2.2	(7.1)
Apr	5.7	10.8	0.6
May	13.4	19.1	7.7
	13.4	(6.1)	(15.3)

Ottawa Winter – Summary? We hope!

The long range trends indicated by Environment Canada and the Weather Network point to seasonal temperatures and it’s highly unlikely (which means I’ll be wrong 8-) ) that we will have a major snowfall – at most we might have traces of snow but we need over 8 cm to really beat the record. This April we only had 6.2 cm plus traces while last year we’d had 28.4 cm. So I guess we can forget about beating the record and accept that it was a very snowy winter.

This April was also drier than last year 78.6 cm of rain versus 68.0 cm this year. This is probably a good thing to reduce flooding problems across the country.

It was interesting hearing about the floods in New Brunswick, I was at Gagetown doing my Artillery Training when we had the flood of 1973 which was their record flooding. So I can understand what they are going through.

This was our view near the river in Oromocto. You can see the cannon which was almost completely covered in the top center left of the picture. We weren’t inundated but I remember food being limited because the transport trucks couldn’t get through the province. Fredericton was hit hard and even when we got through to town you could still see areas flooded.

2007-08 Ottawa Total Snowfall By the Numbers – The Sequel

**Numbers adjusted April 13th at 12:20 from available data**

So as reported in the Ottawa Citizen, it appears that Environment Canada wasn’t exactly consistent in expressing the statistics for the record snowfall year and this winters numbers. The record snowfall has been given by them in a range from 444.1 to 444.6 at various times this winter. David Phillips decided to get things closer to an “official number”. So they have decreed that the official record is 444.1. I checked the climate data base this morning and one of the numbers has changed.

The total up to April 12 was posted April 13th.

Nov-07	59.8
Dec-07	121.0
Jan-08	42.4
Feb-08	89.9
Mar-08	117.4
Apr-08	6.2
	436.7

So now we have had 436.3 436.7 cm after a change in the data for March. That means we are 7.9 7.4 cm from the record.

From the Ottawa Citizen:

It snowed …444.1 Record snowfall for one winter, in centimetres (1970-71)

436.4 436.7 Snowfall so far this year (up to April 10 12)

How much is that? -About the height of eight newspaper pages stacked lengthwise one upon another.

7.9 7.4 Centimetres needed to break record

18 Number of years since 1938-39, when more than 7.9 cm of snow fell after April 10 266 Average winter snowfall in the 1970s (cm)

216 Average for past 10 winters (not counting this year).

143 Number of days with continuous snow cover in 2007-08

139 Number of days in 1970-71

It stayed …

Number of days in which measurable amounts of snow fell (0.2 cm or more):

78 in 2007-08

68 in 1970-71

64 on average

It’s one for the record books …

Three snowiest months in Ottawa history

1. February 1971 159.5 cm

2. December 2007 121 cm

3. March 2008 117.4 cm

six snowiest days in Ottawa history

1. March 2, 1947 40.6 cm

2. Feb. 16, 1954 39.6 cm

3. Jan. 30, 1966 38.6 cm

4. Dec. 26, 2007 35.6 cm

5. Feb. 13, 1993 34.4 cm

6. March 8, 2008 33.6 cm

It had to be removed …-4 million cubic metres

Estimated amount of snow hauled by the city — the equivalent of 200,000 trucks

(if parked end to end would stretch from Ottawa to Florida)

650,000 -Estimated total number of hours logged by winter workers (about 81,000 eight-hour days)

523 -Pieces of equipment used

154 road salt spreaders

150 road plows

114 sidewalk plows

76 front-end loaders, backhoes

29 four-by-four salt spreaders – 5,600

Kilometres of maintained roads – 1,900

Kilometres of sidewalks maintained by city – $65 million

Budget for snow removal in 2008 (January-December) – $60 million

Estimated actual cost of snow removal January-March. -$88 million

Revised forecast for snow removal for 2008, including estimates for the rest of year.

It was a parking headache …22,180 Number of overnight parking ban tickets issued, December to March, 2,506 Number of tickets issued for violating on-street parking during snow removal, December to March

3,026 Number of tickets issued for violating overnight parking ban during special snowstorm emergency, March 6 to 9.

(Statistics from Environment Canada Climate Database and Ottawa Citizen – Apr 12, 2008)

Total Ottawa Snowfall Nov 07 – Apr 08

**Check the post for April 12 – Environment Canada updated their figures and there are additional statistics available.

(Update: Apr 10 looks like there is a chance for more snow in the next 3 days – a real collage of weather is on the way.)

So the missing data appeared and so far we’ve had 5.8 cm of snow in April. So the Ottawa winter 07-08 total to date (Apr 8 ) is 434.9 so Ottawa is about 10 cm from the record snowfall. So we are close but no cigar yet but rest assured Mother Nature may still have more in store for us and remember that statistically 1 in 3 May’s has snow.

Source: Environment Canada Climate Database – Ottawa Airport.

Nov-07	59.8
Dec-07	121.0
Jan-08	42.4
Feb-08	89.9
Mar-08	116.0
Apr-08	5.8
	434.9

Ottawa Snowfall-November 2007 to End of March 2008

*** The current year 2008-2009 Data to date is available in Winter 2008-2009 Snowfall.

**Check the post for April 12 – Environment Canada updated their figures and there are additional statistics available.

Apr 6/08 **Update** no data available in climate db for Apr 4 so no idea how much snow, they have just skipped a day – hopefully they will add the missing data on Monday.

Update: only trace amounts of snow for April 1 and 2 so no change in totals.

So we are 15 cm from the record – one good freaky April or May snowfall could do it. The final tally for March was 116.0 cm bringing this winters total 429.1 cm (441.1 Ottawa Record 70-71). According to the climate database we still have 52 cm of snow on the ground. No wonder our snowbanks are so still so high. Hopefully we will have minimal flooding with this massive thaw.

Nov-07	59.8
Dec-07	121.0
Jan-08	42.4
Feb-08	89.9
Mar-08	116.0
	429.1

Total Snow Accumulation – Ottawa Airport Nov 2007-March XX 27, 2008

Go here for the 2008-2009 Data

**Check the post for April 12 – Environment Canada updated their figures and there are additional statistics available.

 Updated: March 30/08 – Total unchanged as of 29th March.   ;-}

Updated: Mar 28/08 10:00 am – no change 8-)

According to Climate Data Online we have had 426.7 cm of snow from November ‘07 to March 25 27 ‘08 at the Ottawa Airport. The record is 444.1 cm so we are still 17.4 cm away from tying the record.

Nov-07	59.8
Dec-07	121
Jan-08	42.4
Feb-08	89.9
Mar-08	113.6
	426.7

First Day of Spring – a technicality

So spring has sprung – the grass hasn’t riz and if David Phillips of Environment is correct we are looking at 6 more weeks of cooler than normal temperatures. That is probably a good thing what with the volume of snow that has to melt. There is going to be a lot of flooding. A sunny but cold Easter Weekend. Wonder if they got that right?

Test of Tests

There is quite an unusual and challenging test on this site. Let me tell you that I got the number right when I did it.

DOTHETEST

The March towards the record snowfall

Beware the Ides of March. An update on Ottawa by the Numbers.

We shall see if we are going to set a record. Trying to find snow accumulation data is an interesting exercise. I think I found the database on the Environment Canada web site. We were supposedly at 411 cm as of Monday last. Using the database and a comment on tonights weather I am guessing that we’ve have between 6.4 cm and a bit more like maybe 2 cm on the 14th (couldn’t find the data for the 14th). So that would mean that we would be at 417.4 or 419.4 cm. We may be about 25 cms from the record snowfall.

The 14 day trend for March indicates snow is probable from the 20th to 28th almost each day. 8 potential days of snow 3-4 cm per day would break the record.

Hopefully the thaw will be slow and deliberate rather than a quick melt. All we need is flooding to really make it a record winter.