Friday, March 09, 2012

Much colder

Don't forget to Spring Forward this weekend with Daylight Savings Time at 2am Sunday morning. That means one less hour of the weekend, why do we not do this at 4pm on Friday at work?

After yesterday's record high in Montreal, we wake to ice and snow on L'Ile Perrot. ValleyWX
What a difference 24 hours can make. That was one potent cold front that swept southern Quebec and Ontario last evening with plenty of moisture, gusty winds and plummeting temperatures. Montreal reached a record high of 13C (55F) yesterday at around 11am. It beat the old record of 10.8C set in 2000. By late afternoon a steady rain had developed along with increasing westerly winds pushing 60km/h. Temperatures fell from 11C at 6pm to 6C at 7pm and 0C by midnight. The rain changed to a brief period of heavy wet snow that coated everything and iced up the roads. Depending where you are in the metro-region you saw between 3 and 5cm of snow overnight. That leaves us at -5C this morning with windchill values as cold as -10C and icy roads. All this in 24 hours or less. Now be prepared to go the other way because that is just what we will do this weekend. A warm front will approach the region on Saturday with highs near the freezing point, and all the way up to 9C on Sunday. No appreciable precipitation is in the forecast at this time with perhaps just a few flurries overnight and Saturday. Next week looks to be very mild with well above normal temperatures.

Other records broken yesterday included 61F at Montpelier and Burlington, Vermont and 61F at Massena/Cornwall. The warm temperatures have created some flooding concerns in upstate New York with a flood advisory posted for Clinton County, New York including the Village of Champlain. Melting ice is jamming on the Great Chazy River near Perry Mills and creating high river levels and minor flooding.

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