Lower Mainland Weather Central

[Migrant_Coconut]

Well at least the plows were out. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, somebody's getting reassigned to Sanitation...

[Shift]

Has there ever been such a long stretch of low temperatures and snow like this before in Metro Vancouver? There has literally been snow on the ground for almost a month in Surrey, with temperatures hovering around zero, and no end in sight for the first 2 weeks of January and beyond. We could be looking at roughly 2 straight months of snow and freezing temps by the end of it.

Very unusual. I've never seen such persistent cold weather here. I don't remember 2008 lasting as long. These relentless below freezing temps could end up killing some of the palm trees that have managed to survive here over the past few decades.

[Pinion]

Happened all the time in the 80s/90s. Although my experience might be skewed from living way up near the gondola on Grouse.

Almost no snow at my place in coastal North Van this year.

[mcminsen]

Yes, it already seems like it's been a long winter and it's only New Year's Day. October and November were all about gloom and rain. December was all about snow and now maybe January is going to be a long stretch of cold. I guess it's payback time for all the recent winters that were so mild.

Currently it's not so bad downtown with just a thin layer of snow and ice in certain places but not much on the streets or sidewalks (other than the seawall). I often get to east Vancouver and am amazed at the persistent snow and ice. I feel sorry for the seniors and others that have difficulty with the icy sidewalks.



Downtown Vancouver, Jan.1 '17, my pics

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Shift

Has there ever been such a long stretch of low temperatures and snow like this before in Metro Vancouver? There has literally been snow on the ground for almost a month in Surrey, with temperatures hovering around zero, and no end in sight for the first 2 weeks of January and beyond. We could be looking at roughly 2 straight months of snow and freezing temps by the end of it.

Very unusual. I've never seen such persistent cold weather here. I don't remember 2008 lasting as long. These relentless below freezing temps could end up killing some of the palm trees that have managed to survive here over the past few decades.

every 10ish years, 1996 was brutal, way worse than now, it snowed non stop for days, over 3 feet of snow in our driveway. It took a few weeks to get back to normal.

2008 was bad, about the same as this year, maybe a little more. I remember trying to walk the seawall on christmas day, it was icy and snow covered and hard to get around. I bought some winter boots that snow storm. only had to use them a few days however lol. basically sat unused until i moved to alberta a few years back.

it lasted a good month from before christmas into about the 3rd week of january remained cold with snow, then a pineapple express hit i think and it vanished pretty quickly.

That winter we lost a few plants in the garden

anyway - i ended up parked under a few trees today in a few different places and while in the car i could hear the constant ping of little ice bombs, not damaging but decent sized ice dropping from the trees.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Shift

Has there ever been such a long stretch of low temperatures and snow like this before in Metro Vancouver? There has literally been snow on the ground for almost a month in Surrey, with temperatures hovering around zero, and no end in sight for the first 2 weeks of January and beyond. We could be looking at roughly 2 straight months of snow and freezing temps by the end of it.

Very unusual. I've never seen such persistent cold weather here. I don't remember 2008 lasting as long. These relentless below freezing temps could end up killing some of the palm trees that have managed to survive here over the past few decades.

December 2008 was actually colder and snowier. Some sheltered places (such as the north side of Burnaby Mountain) had snow on the ground for over 2 months and YVR hit -16 (the second coldest reading ever). So far this year YVR has not gone below -10. Some stations in milder locations have only gone down to -5 / -6. Therefore I would not worry about the palms we have around town. They survived 2008 and 1996, the vast majority should do so again. Also remember the vast majority of them are planted in milder locations (directly adjacent to the sea, urban heat islands, areas that are above where cool air pools, etc...). This is a one in ten year winter. They suck, but it makes the other 9 that much better. Even so most areas still averaged above freezing for their mean and some areas near the sea and around Victoria still had average lows above freezing. Shows how relative things are. That said, once you get as inland as Surrey (not talking south Surrey) such winters tend to be amplified for their snow and cold. Funny thing is through all of this Metro-Victoria has only had small amounts of snow on the ground for a total of 3 or 4 days.

[nname]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

2008 was bad, about the same as this year, maybe a little more. I remember trying to walk the seawall on christmas day, it was icy and snow covered and hard to get around. I bought some winter boots that snow storm. only had to use them a few days however lol. basically sat unused until i moved to alberta a few years back.

2008 was way worse than this year. Pretty much most places ended up with almost a meter of snow on the ground at some point, with SFU getting over 2m on the ground. This year there are as many days with snowfall as 2008, but each of these snow fall is only a few cms. Almost all storms have only few localized big dump of snow that only lasted a few hours. There are places where the ground remain bare and dry between the storms...

Just a quick comparison between the three years using airport stat. I think it's just that we got so few snow lately that people forgot that we get an average of 50cm of snow a year...

			1996	2008	2016
Start date		Dec19	Dec13	Dec05
Numbers of storms	  3	  7	  6
Duration*		 14	 27	 27
Snow on ground days**	 11	 27	  5
Total snowfall cm	 80.7	106.4	 27.4
Largest daily snowfall	 41.0	 26.8	  7.0
Deepest snow on ground	 35	 41	  5

* = number of days between first snow fall and the day when all snow on ground melted after last storm
** = number of days when there are at least 1cm on ground recorded at the airport

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

Yes, it already seems like it's been a long winter and it's only New Year's Day. October and November were all about gloom and rain. December was all about snow and now maybe January is going to be a long stretch of cold. I guess it's payback time for all the recent winters that were so mild.

Currently it's not so bad downtown with just a thin layer of snow and ice in certain places but not much on the streets or sidewalks (other than the seawall). I often get to east Vancouver and am amazed at the persistent snow and ice. I feel sorry for the seniors and others that have difficulty with the icy sidewalks.]

Downtown Vancouver is kind of a little snow-free island. The rest of the city has more, once you cross 12th Ave in most places.

[trofirhen]

Looking at the weather on Google (please remember, I'm in NZ at the moment) I notice that Seattle has been having a string of days with colder temps than Vancouver, day and night.
That's really unusual, as normally, in a cold snap, the cold airmass is more dispersed when it gets down to Seattle, and furthermore, they don't have "outflow gaps" as in Vancouver.
This is going to switch back to normal in the days to come, I understand, but it is an anomaly. Now, at one point, Portland ORE was colder than both, due to the Columbia gap wind.
And our southern neighbouring Cascadia cities will no doubt return to normal before Vancouver does, but this prolonged 'inverse' anomaly was surprising neverthess.

[Metro-One]

Portland can actually regularly be colder than Seattle and Vancouver during strong outflows, but they are also the warmest during mild influxes. Essentially, they have a larger variation in temps than the other major PNW cities. Seattle and Victoria tend to be the mildest cities during outflows, but of course there are always exceptional days where this can reverse. The snowiest locations are Squamish, The Fraser Valley, and Blaine Washington.

[Waders]

From CBC. So your sidewalk is covered in a thick layer of Zamboni-slick ice. Now what?
In the article's picture a lady tried to use an axe to clear the ice.

[SpongeG]

-14 with the windchill tomorrow apparently


was -6 around 9 pm out here

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Portland can actually regularly be colder than Seattle and Vancouver during strong outflows, but they are also the warmest during mild influxes. Essentially, they have a larger variation in temps than the other major PNW cities. Seattle and Victoria tend to be the mildest cities during outflows, but of course there are always exceptional days where this can reverse. The snowiest locations are Squamish, The Fraser Valley, and Blaine Washington.

Yes, I know Portland is colder and hotter than Seattle under certain conditions. Its highs can get over 40C in heatwaves - hotter than Seattle, and considerably hotter than Vancouver.
Also, during cold snaps, the pool of frigid air gets over-ridden by incoming Pacific flows, and Portland gets regular ice storms - not just a film of ice, but thick coatings of it.
I have rarely seen anything like that in Vancouver. One morning, watching KIRO 7 Seattle news, they were glazed in ice, skidding all over Hell's half acre while in Vancouver it was raining.

[p78hub]

I take the YVR stats with a grain of salt, since naturally the airport is a little bit warmer and sees less snow. Even with this last snowfall, Richmond was more rain than snow.

I'd say that everywhere above sea level saw a whole lot more than 27cm of snow this winter, especially Burnaby and Coquitlam which I'm guessing got maybe 2 feet or more so far?

[nname]

Originally Posted by p78hub

I take the YVR stats with a grain of salt, since naturally the airport is a little bit warmer and sees less snow. Even with this last snowfall, Richmond was more rain than snow.

I'd say that everywhere above sea level saw a whole lot more than 27cm of snow this winter, especially Burnaby and Coquitlam which I'm guessing got maybe 2 feet or more so far?

And this happens every year. Even for 1996 and 2008, the airport received much less snow than everywhere else, just like this year. I remembered I measured 113cm for snow depth in my yard in 2008, and yet the airport don't even get half as much. So that stat still shows that comparatively, the snowstorms in 1996 and 2008 is much worse than what we're getting now... so far.

[Metro-One]

While YVR is definitely on the lower side for snowfall totals, it is actually in the mid range for low temperatures during winter. Several areas are usually milder (essentially the entire southwest corner of the metro, most of Vancouver itself, the lower areas of the North Shore, etc...) The coldest weather station is almost always Pitt Meadows for overnight lows during the winter. This is because cold air is heavy and pools into the lowest flat areas. Pitt Meadows is low, flat, decently away from ocean, and has a direct outflow source from Pitt Lake. If you look at the stats from the last big blast of cold air in December, it was much colder than any other weather station, even Abbotsford and Agassiz.

For snowfall totals, usually the lightest hit areas are the southwest corner again, Richmond, YVR, downtown Van, and the lowest elevations of the North Shore including Horseshoe Bay. The hardest hit areas are almost always the Como Lake area (reaches up to 200 meters in elevation), Metrtown (again, reaches up to 200 meters in elevation), the higher areas of the North Shore, the mid and higher parts of Coquitlam, the mid and higher parts of Maple Ridge, and most of Surrey / Langley east of 152nd. All other areas (New West, Brentwood, higher parts of Van proper, lower parts of the Tri-Cities, etc...) are somewhere in the middle.

[nname]

Port Moody got hit hard this time too, but not so much for surrounding area. Went to Rocky Point park yesterday, and there's still a good 20-25cm on the ground and it's at sea level:





There is barely any snow left in the Coquitlam Centre even tough the elevation is higher... 2 to 5cm maybe.

[Waders]

COV is finally doing something about the icy sidewalks. 300 city staff redeployed to deal with treacherous Vancouver streets and sidewalks

"This winter is not typical," ..., the city spent $2.5 million on snow response in December. "We've already used over 7,000 tonnes of salt already. Last year we used about a thousand."

And based on the following picture from CBC, the sidewalk does look like a skating rink.

Picture

And someone was icy fish in Coquitlam's Como Lake.

[mcminsen]

These pics are from yesterday around Broadway/Main/Kingsway. It would take a fair amount of rain and time to get this ice gone. When's the next Pineapple Express?



Jan.2 '16, my pics

[csbvan]

Not in the next 2 weeks from the looks of it. Below zero throughout, maybe above zero and snow or mixed this weekend.