A big warm up underway
10th Anniversary of the Ice Storm
January 5-10th, 1998

A major warm up is underway in eastern Ontario this morning. You can actually hear the snow melting. As surprise introduction to the warm air was a quick shot of 5-7cm of wet snow last night in Kemptville that made roads nasty to drive on. The warm air will continue to invade our region till mid-week before a cold front brings us back to reality.

The warmth may reach record levels with highs at or above 10C for the area. Fog and drizzle will occur often as the air remains very moist as a result of the continuous melting.

The Ice Storm: The great Ice Storm is 10 years old already. The storm claimed 35 lives, created hardship for over 4 million people in eastern North America, but especially Ontario and Quebec. Over 3 billion in damages, the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history, 130 transmission towers down and over 120,000km of power and telephone lines needed to be repaired.

Whew, what a storm and I missed it. Only weather people can know how difficult it is for me to talk and write about this subject. When you are into weather you want to be where the action is. Not always possible, so when it comes to you...great. I had lived in Montreal for all my life at the time, 31 years. But just 5 months before the great storm I moved to Saskatchewan for work and had to leave my beloved Montreal. I had to watch from a distance of 3500km as all my family, friends and former co-workers struggled through it. All I wanted to do was be home, as a matter of fact I almost quit my job and came back east. That is a story for another day.

Anyway check out this awesome link by the Montreal Gazette about the Ice Storm...
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/frozenintime/index.html