Canadian Weather Centre - Blog Outreach @ WunderBlog - By Nicholas Tam

Posted by: NickWeatherGuy, 2:04 AM GMT on December 15, 2009

Edmonton, Alberta - I'm sure all of you has heard that Edmonton has reached -46 C last weekend. At that moment, Edmonton was the coldest place on Earth, though this record was soon broken by a location in Siberia few hours later. -46 C was not the record coldest temperature, however. The coldest ever recorded was actually -48 C.
The wind chill in Edmonton last weekend reached down to -50 C. Such freezing cold temperature and wind chill values led to Environment Canada issuing a Wind Chill Warning to much of Alberta and the prairie provinces. The deep freeze is expected to continue until Thursday, when the next wave of low pressure arrives from British Columbia (the current system that dumped about 10 cm of snow in Vancouver, BC)
Southern Ontario - Anyways, back to the main topic of this post. The aforementioned cold air will descent into much of Ontario, following the system that is dumping misery rain in southern Ontario. Once the system pulls out, the Arctic air floodgates open, and with it, a strong (though not as strong as last week, at about 30 - 35 kph) north-northwest winds will accompany with it. The snowsquall activity should begin Tuesday evening, and continuing through Thursday morning.
As a Great Laker, one should know that this brings on the snowsqualls. Since this time, the wind direction is angled at north-northwest, bands of snowsqualls may actually reach as far south as the Greater Toronto Area. The north-eastern portion and the north-western portion of the GTA is expected to have more accumulation than in the downtown core.
With this snowsquall activity, the snowsquall amount will vary, as depicted in my following map. However, rule of thumb, areas in the south-eastern shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron may experience as much as 30 cm of snow, locally reaching 40 cm.
Anyhow, the following map (that I spent 2 hours making), summarizes all (of how I view this system):

The brown arrows indicate the general wind directions.
Sorry.. I forgot to make the legend, but here you go:
There are four shades of blue:
The lightest shade: 2 - 5 cm accumulated snow
The second lightest shade (sky blue colour): 5 - 10 cm
The third lightest (blue-purple): 10 - 20 cm
The darkest (Navy blue): 20 + cm

Here's my forecast. Since I'm running out of time, I'll just forecast for the major cities below:
Sarnia - 5 - 8 cm
Chatham - Trace to 2 cm
London - 4 - 8 cm (My map and my forecast may be slightly underestimated)
St. Thomas - Trace to 4 cm (again, may be underestimated)
St. Mary's - 2 - 4 cm
Stratford - Trace to 4 cm (may be underestimated on the map)
Goderich - 10 to 15 cm
Kincardine - 25 to 30 cm
Owen Sound - 15 to 20 cm
Tobermory - 10 to 18 cm
Meaford - 18 to 22 cm
Collingwood - 22 to 30 cm
Wasaga Beach - 25 to 30+ cm
Midland - 18 to 22 cm (may be slightly overestimated on the map)
Orillia - 8 to 15 cm
Gravenhurst; Bracebridge - Trace to 3 cm
Barrie - 15 to 20 cm
Keswick / Bradford / Georgina / Sutton - 8 to 15 cm
Northern York Region (Newmarket ; Aurora) - 5 to 10 cm
Markham / Pickering / Ajax / Whitby - 2 to 7 cm
Richmond Hill / Vaughan - Trace to 5 cm
Peel Region - None (Mississauga) to 5 cm (Caledon)
North Toronto (North of the 401) - Trace to 4 cm
South Toronto (Downtown) - None to 2 cm
Waterloo Region (Kitchener / Waterloo) - 3 to 5 cm (may be slightly underestimated on the map)
Cambridge - Trace to 4 cm
Kawartha Lakes / Beaverton - 4 to 8 cm
Grimsby / Lincoln / Welland - Trace to 4 cm
St. Catharines / Niagara Falls - 3 cm to 8 cm
Niagara - on - the - Lake - 6 cm to 12 cm
Fort Erie - Trace to 3 cm

* Bolded cities indicate the cities that I think would be the hardest hit.
If you have any comments about this forecast, please post it. Thanks!

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A messy mix... Again!

Posted by: NickWeatherGuy, 11:49 PM GMT on December 12, 2009

Southern Ontario - After a messy winter storm on Wednesday (and messy days of snowsqualls in the snow belt areas, which I must say, was EXTREMELY impressive... Huntsville saw over 60 cm of snow within 24 hours... quite impressive, I must say again)..Anyhow, there is currently a system tracking its way north. Currently, it is located in the Carolinas, carrying its moisture and of course, some heat from the Gulf of Mexico along with it. The system has brought heavy ra...

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Brrr... Spring is Near? PLEASE COMMENT!

Posted by: NickWeatherGuy, 10:57 PM GMT on March 03, 2009

If I say Brrr... How can spring be near? It's at all possible. To keep it brief (heavy homework load, ahh), spring is very very close to us.As I had observed during the past few years, since 2003 (6 winters so far), I have seen the last week of February as the coldest week in the year. During this week, temperatures (for Southern Ontario) can dip as low as -20 C. The week following that, however, things turn around rapidly. The next week, temperatures usually featur...

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Another Wave of Wintry Weather

Posted by: NickWeatherGuy, 5:02 AM GMT on December 23, 2008

Ontario - Yet another winter storm is targeting Ontario. This winter storm, however, will dump some misery rain over the northern shorelines of Lake Erie and Ontario, and possibly some freezing rain. While this might not be a significant impact to having a white Christmas, it is certainly something to look out for during your way to your parties on Christmas Eve.The system currently is just over the Plains of US right now, providing some flurry activities in through...

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More than a foot (40 cm) of snow possible before Christmas!

Posted by: NickWeatherGuy, 9:58 PM GMT on December 18, 2008

Eastern Canada - 7 days 'til Christmas! The big question is, will Southern Ontarians experience a white Christmas? We had unpleasant experiences before with green Christmases, like last year, we had a warm-up right before Christmas Eve, melting majority of the snow, making Christmas - a green Christmas. As far as I recall, I don't think we had a white Christmas in a very long time. Well good news is here! It looks like by Christmas Day, some parts of Ontario can ha...

Updated: 10:02 PM GMT on December 18, 2008

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Nicholas is a male 15 year old student in Markham, Ontario. He spends all his spare time observing and recording weather from his weather station.

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