foto of the sunday: when snow really fell

When I was a kid, snow really fell in my home town in northern Canada. That's me, there, posing at the end of our driveway. The snow got so deep that the telephone company had to come along to dig out their wires. The huge icicles on the yellow house across the stree meant it wasn't insulated well enough.

This year, folks tell me that the deep snow is back again in my home town, except that the municipality lacks the tax revenues to plough streets outside of regular working hours.
Global warming was nice, while it lasted.

(Photograph by my dad, probably around 1966.) 

Update

Here is how the snow looks this winter in the same town (photo credit Jon): 

Upper-date

 Another meter (3') of snow fell on Kitimat overnight on Feb 17. The photo below shows snow piled roof-high in front of this one-storey house. This snow bank is super high due to three reasons: (1) natural snow fall; (2) snow blown there by municipal snow blower trucks; and (3) the homeowner shoveling snow off the roof of his house. In the foreground is a bustop sign.

 

Comments

[Dave Ault]

The first time I went to the Keewenaw Peninsula in the UP of Michigan there were these odd doors with no stairways at the second story level on a bunch of houses. I find out later that as winter goes along the snow gets so deep they have to use that door to get out. I guess when you get an average of 300+" of snow a year removal can be a problem!

[DF]

That's odd, because according to UCAR:

Surface temperature anomalies for the period 17 December 2010 to 15 January 2011 show impressive warmth across the Canadian Arctic….

The largest anomalies here exceed 21°C (37.8°F) above average, which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month.

To put this picture into even sharper focus, let’s take a look at Coral Harbour, located at the northwest corner of Hudson Bay in the province of Nunavut. On a typical mid-January day, the town drops to a low of –34°C (–29.2°F) and reaches a high of just -26°C (–14.8°F). Compare that to what Coral Harbour actually experienced in the first twelve days of January 2011, as reported by Environment Canada (see table at left).

After New Year’s Day, the town went 11 days without getting down to its average daily high.
On the 6th of the month, the low temperature was –3.7°C (25.3°F). That’s a remarkable 30°C (54°F) above average.
On both the 5th and 6th, Coral Harbor inched above the freezing mark. Before this year, temperatures above 0°C (32°F) had never been recorded in the entire three months of January, February, and March.

http://www2.ucar.edu/currents/cold-comfort-canadas-record-smashing-mildness

[ralphg]

It's easy to cherry pick data points to support a particular point of view. I've added an updated photo of this winter in my old home town, sent by a friend who still lives there.

Also, the UCAR.EDU phrase "had never been recorded" needs to be edited to read, "had never been recorded in the few decades temperature records have been kept".

[DF]

It's easy to cherry pick data points to support a particular point of view.

Science really isn't a "point of view". And even if it was, it's scientists versus various lobbyists and shills for vested interests (business and petrochemical).

We've been here before with Big Tobacco.

Also, the UCAR.EDU phrase "had never been recorded" needs to be edited to read, "had never been recorded in the few decades temperature records have been kept".

1850 isn't a few decades. And reconstruction from the tree-ring record (and other indicators) is something that the scientific community does attest to.

[Ralph Grabowski]

Tree ring data has been found to be highly selected, according to the researcher's needs, because tree growth is affected by more factors other than a few milligrams of CO2 puffed into the air. Things like shading by other trees, remaining snowpacks, and so on.

1850 is nothing, compared to geological time. It doesn't even go back to the Middle Ages Warming period, when Greenland was green, because temps were higher than they are now.

The billions in funding that Big Governments give to pro-AGW researchers is a scandal.

[DF]

Tree ring data has been found to be highly selected, according to the researcher's needs, because tree growth is affected by more factors other than a few milligrams of CO2 puffed into the air. Things like shading by other trees, remaining snowpacks, and so on.

Who has 'found' this?

1850 is nothing, compared to geological time. It doesn't even go back to the Middle Ages Warming period, when Greenland was green, because temps were higher than they are now.

We're talking about global warming, not local, remember.

The billions in funding that Big Governments give to pro-AGW researchers is a scandal.

There is no "pro-AGW researchers", there's just (reputable) scientists. If there was a shred of credible evidence in the opposite direction, we'd have heard it before now (given the immense resources of the oild firms and other vested interests).

[Ralph Grabowski]

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

- 'Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past' by Charles Onians, The Independent (20 March 2000)

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

[DF]

And from the rest of the newspaper article:

""Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.""

Note that this isn't an academic paper, but an interview, probably over a phone. We can keep doing this quote-mining dance all year, I suspect.