Weekend Update

LA Times photo of a fire vehicle stuck in a mudslide. Below: Heavy mountain snows have closed roads across Arizona and northern California.

I am trying to make it through January. I find this the most difficult month of the year, dark and cold. Christmas has passed and baseball is oh so far away, but a least the sun will be out today. Low clouds prevailed yesterday delaying my promise of sunshine by one day. It will be out today across eastern Ontario and southern Quebec. Temperatures are chilly this morning but near normal. The high temperature today will be around -4C. The weekend will feature a sunny Saturday and an equally fair Sunday before that big Pacific storm moves into the region.


That storm hit Arizona and California hard yesterday. The third in a series of coastal lows dumped feet of snow in the mountains and over 10 inches of rain in the valley's around Los Angeles. There were numerous mudslides and flooding reported. Heavy mountain snows clogged roads and towering waves destroyed some coastal building and piers. There was even more tornadoes sighted along the coast, a very rare event for California. That storm will slide across the central plains and towards the central Great Lakes. Heavy snow and some freezing rain will prevail from Colorado north into southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Freezing drizzle is already icing roads this morning, and 10-20cm of snow is forecast across southern portion of those provinces with gusty winds producing near blizzard conditions over the weekend.

As the storm moves west of our region, warm air will push north with it and with mostly rain in Montreal and Ottawa. The precipitation will begin late Sunday as a little light wet snow but rapidly change to rain into Monday. From 15-25mm of rain is possible, so we will have to watch for ice jam potentials or flooding issues across the region.

I will update this weather event on Saturday. Enjoy the weekend and be safe.
Please keep the people of Haiti in your thought and prayers and donate if you can. The link to the Red Cross on the upper left is active.