What a wimp of a storm. We were expected to get 20-30 cm, and I can see my front porch fine. I'd be lucky if we got 3-4. All buses, train, restaurants are closed. For what? Looking at the radar, it looks like we are done. The winds are howling pretty fast out there too. My snow's probably down the street!

Hope everyone is fine down with Yasi. What a incredible storm.

All schools in metro Toronto have been shut down. As soon as I posted above, in comes the sideways snow. Bring it on!

Hubby and I just traveled through New Mexico and saw the temp. gauge hit -23°F.
(-30.5°C). That's minus there, folks!! That almost NEVER happens here. This just can't be happening. :-O At home in southern Arizona we're supposed to get a hard freeze tonight (18 to 23°F). I had to call mom to cover my poor lemon tree so it doesn't die since I'm not at home. I hope everybody is warm and cozy and comes through this storm OK.

Yesterday's high here in Dallas was the coldest high temperature since December 22, 1990 (20°F or -6.5°C). It will finaly warm up to about 50°F (10°C) on Super Sunday, and then more snow and ice in the forecast Monday and Wednesday.

For those with snow I have a question ... at what point do things close down?
Is it a certain temperature or depth of snow that authorities close schools ... government buildings ... banks .. shops and so on? Or is it more about road conditions?

I just spent two weeks in California and the weather was beyond perfect!

Home now and it's hovering around the forty celcius mark (110F) but as humid as anything and I'm finding that the worst bit.

Depends on where you live. Here in Dallas, even an inch (2.5cm) will shut things down. Schools have been closed all week except Monday (there is a layer of ice below the 2-3" (5-7.5cm) of snow that fell before I woke at 4:30am - for the fourth time this week).

Up north, it may be 1' (30.5cm) before they close down, since they are more accustomed to snow and wintry conditions.

The materials used for roads can be different depending on location as well, depending if they get extreme heat in the summer or extreme cold in the winter.
That goes for the types of tires people in the areas buy, depending on the normal road conditions. In some urban areas, or larger colleges, that are used to large snowfalls, they can have underground tunnell networks connecting buildings etc, to the point one would never have to step outside for long periods of time if they didn't want to, but still get around some.

Just to update: the snow is still falling here and at least at work in Plano, there's about 7" (17.8cm) on the ground now.

Well, we are now in "thaw" mode. We are at 50°F (10°C) today, and most of the roadways are now clear...still slightly wet, but very passable. Too bad we have more of the snow tomorrow and Wednesday.

The sun came out. The snow returned.

I feel like I am in a rerun.

Wow, it snowed (a pathetically small amount) in Toronto? Absolutely must be a conspiracy, because that sort of thing just doesn't happen in the centre of the universe does it? LOL

The closing of businesses/schools etc here in Canada depends where you live. It's a big country. In BC, where huge amounts of snow are unusual (thus, they don't have snow-clearing machinery/vehicles and folks don't bother buying either all-weather or snow tires), as little as a half-inch of snow can "shut down" cities/towns for at least one day (by the next day, the snow has either melted or it's probably raining and BC folks know how to drive in the rain lol).

In Ontario, it's considered a "national" crisis if they get 10 cm of snow on a weekend and they've gone as far as calling out the Canadian military to remove snow.

In the Maritime provinces, they are inundated with horrendous amounts of snow. They've learned to deal with it. Not to mention that even if they get huge amounts of snow, generally, it's diminished in a few days by either rain or warming temps.

In the northern regions of Canada winter is when "industry" makes the most money, because (snow or not), roads, rivers and lakes oil sites are navigable/accessible for about 8 months of the year. No "shutdown" up there due to snow.

Out here in Alberta, they don't care if it takes you three hours to dig your way out of 25 cm of snow overnight, you'd better make it into work that day (that includes teachers). And while we don't get as MUCH snow (in one dumping) as the Great Lakes areas of Ontario/Quebec or the Maritimes, the main difference is that our seasonal ACCUMULATION of snow often DOESN'T GO AWAY completely until April. Same goes for Saskatchewan and much of Manitoba. Sorry if I sound like I'm calling some of our provinces "woosies". Prairie/northern folks were just not brought up to be whiners : )

As for global warming? I think Al Gore (and others like him) have made more than enough money already on this one. I distinctly remember when I was in grade 12 in the early 70's that they were predicting a minor ICE AGE for the Northern Hemisphere. It might even have "caught on" and become a "panic" (with people buying up all the cold weather survival gear available on the planet) if not for the fact that the internet didn't exist then LOL

That being said, I DO feel for the folks in the southern states who do not have snow removal equipment or central heating for the most part and I do understand when they have to shut down many services due to unusual winter weather.

Even though I live in the GTA, I agree with pretty much everything Jakeroo just said about us.

Toronto is the hub for immigration to Canada, so when it snows, it is the first time many Torontonians have even snow. Then when they try to commute to work (in the already stop-and-start traffic), the rear-enders and spin-outs occur. Plus then, the road also has the others that are too important and have to be at work at a certain time, yet are too lazy to give themselves extra time.

The city was prepared for the storm, but this one was way overanticipated. The day before I was sitting in the doctor's office while the receptionist called all of the next day's patients to cancel their appointments. With all the media, they all called for 20-30 cm, and I woke up to see I could easily walk out on to the front deck, and could see the wood planks. Safe to say the weathermen heard about it. Today (Feb. 5) is National Weatherman Day, by the way.

Then the Toronto District School Board and Catholic Board closed the schools for the first time since the "Army Storm" in 1999. The universities and colleges are cancelled the night before, and many people called in sick/snowed in (even though 3/4 of those weren't either of the 2). The local high schools, who had just finished Semester 1 exams, had already had this day off as a "Snow day" in case something like this happened during exams.

That night, after the storm, the news ran a story on "Are we weather wimps?". They asked people from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Moncton, all saying "Yes", including the people who in Moncton have had a metre worth of snow thus yeat, and in Vancouver, where the temps are always above freezing.

People in other parts of Canada barely flinch when there is a large snowfall. In Toronto it's treated like the end of the world.

Every Canadian whines about the weather, eh? Too snowy, hot, cold, windy, rainy....

Like me, for instance, Jakeroo? We had to bring in 29 snowplows from the Panhandle (we have a total of four here in Dallas) to get roadways cleared for the Super Bowl festivities...just think if those 29 were still in Amarillo! We do get snow on occasion (not every year) and it's gone either later that day or next day at the longest. Our high temps this week were:

Tues: 22°F (-5.5°C) (5pm temperature - the National Weather Service reported it as 39°F or 3.5°C - which was at midnight)
Wed: 20°F (-7.5°C) *coldest high in 20 years, and broke the old lowest high set in 1905 at 21°F (-7°C)
Thur: 23°F (-5°C)
Fri: 28°F (-2°C)

We went about 100 hours below freezing (4:45am Tues until 9am Sat), which doesn't show as the top longest stretches below freezing (which is held by the winter of 1983 where we went 295 hours below freezing) here. Most (if not all) school systems here were closed all week except Monday. They all add two days for inclement weather if needed (which didn't happen the last two years), and now somewhere they will have to add two more.

Dave: yup, folks like you. Quite frankly I was surprised to find out that you had ANY snowplows, much less FOUR! lol. Mind, at minus 5C, we'd probably be walking around without jackets on ~ On the flip side, of course, except for office buildings and shopping malls, very few people have air conditioning here in Alberta, so on those rare occasions where the temps hit 90F, sleeping at night can be a tad uncomfortable.

George: Nope, people out here don't usually complain about "too this" or "too that". Farmers will complain about an entire SEASON however (EVERY year, in fact) lol. When it's minus 40 plus wind chill, people here generally just say things like "cold enough for ya?" (well that is, if their moustaches aren't frozen to their beards, or their tongues aren't stuck to goalposts)

: )

Jakeroo, those four snowplows have to cover all of I-820 (34 miles), I-20 from I-30 to I-635 (59 miles), I-30 from I-20 to the Lake Ray Hubbard bridge (65 miles), I-635 (36.5 miles), I-35E from Denton to Waxahachie (70 miles), I-35W from Denton to Alvarado (61 miles), TX 360 from TX 121 to I-20 (25 miles), TX 121 to I-35W to McKinney (55 miles), I-45/US 75 from McKinney to Ennis (80 miles), as well as many other freeways/highways in a short time.

I'm impressed that they can get as much done as they can with the four they have.

A question for those who live in snow bound places near the sea. I've read that in Norway and Denmark over the last few years they have been inundated with massive amounts of snow. Naturally they clear the streets but they were running out of places to put the snow. They are not allowed to dump it into the sea. Why is this? A mate and I came up with the theory that it may not melt and become a shipping hazard (esp in a harbour or narrow stretch of sea) but it only seems obvious to put it in the ocean. Why can't you dump snow in the ocean?

Dave: Yes! That is VERY impressive!

Tizzabelle: It used to be considered "okay" to do this, but there were no Environmental Protection Acts back then.

Snow scraped off of roads would contain all sorts of contaminants such as antifreeze, gas, oil, road salts (not remotely similar to ocean salt), ice-melt chemicals etc. that would kill things that live in the ocean, not to mention would add piles and piles of litter/garbage/car parts to the water.

And yes, depending on the amount of snow, especially in northern waters, it pretty much just forms big ice blocks. Which is just what an oil producing country like Norway would not want to have in the shipping lanes that oil tankers use lol.

It's illegal to dump snow in ANY water (ocean, rivers, wetlands, lakes, within x # of feet from natural springs and ground wells) here in North America too.

The ironic thing about all this is that, although sewage is treated until it's drinkable, the water in stormwater drains usually is not. So, if road snow is left to melt on its own (i.e. not trucked to some other location) it all ends up in a water source eventually anyway.

Ah... cheers for the explanation Jakeroo. It makes sense now. It's puzzled me for a year now since I first heard that. And you're right about the stuff ending up in a water source anyway.. it doesn't snow here in Sydney but we cop some mightily big storms with pouring rain. They might only last 30 mins or so if it's a summer storm but there is an awful lot of water washed off the roads and into the storm water drains which head out to sea. Lol.. my mother told me to be very careful driving when it first rains after a dry spell because the roads are slippery until all the oil is washed away. Did I believe her? Not really.. but I proved her right by drifting around a corner at a busy intersection. Thankfully it was at slow speed as I'd just taken off from a green light. Phew!

Actually, I think that varies by jurisdiction. Back home they sometimes dump it into the lake if they run out of room and I remember them doing it in DC/Baltimore last year during the Snowmageddon.

I live in Toronto and I agree that it was pathetic.
I used to live about forty kilometers north in the snowbelt. Now THERE were army snows.
The people here in the city don't know snow from smog and will whine about any amount.

I happen to like the snow.

Yes, I agree. Lots of cities have "emergency provisions" written into whatever environmental act they have on the books.