Weather thread

I was looking for this thread last week and couldn't find it.

Last week we had our first snow fall here in London. A disaster, really. It started out wet and ready to melt, but during the wee hours of the night, the temperature dropped, the wet snow froze, and the result was something like a good ice storm. Lots of tree branches down all over.

However, most of the damaged trees were Norway Maples, which have yet to drop their leaves. The snow froze to the leaves, and broke the branches.

London has a history of doing a lot of tree planting over the years, however, it's always done in a monoculture kind of way. Street after street of Norway Maple, or mountain ash. Bad urban forestry.

Anywho, since Friday last, it's been unseasonably warm, particularly today.

First time I've seen a significant snow fall here arrive before the junco's.

Wikipedia tells all...your "former NDP guy" has also spent time in jail, although for the best of reasons:

Dennis Paul Drainville (born February 20, 1954 in Joliette, Quebec) is a Canadian bishop and politician. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1990 to 1993, and later taught Humanities and History for 12 years at the Cegep College de la Gaspésie et des Îles.

Drainville was educated at the University of Toronto's Trinity College, and became an Anglican priest after his graduation. He worked as a parish priest in Ontario from 1982 to 1984, and was the executive director of STOP 103, a multi-service agency in Toronto where he raised the profile of poverty issues and entered into public debate on social policy with both the Federal Conservative Government and several Provincial Governments from 1984 to 1986. He Chaired the first National Conference on Hunger in Canada in 1987. He has served as a priest in the Anglican dioceses of Ontario, Montreal, Toronto and Quebec.

He first ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1977 provincial election. Drainville was a member of the Liberal Party at the time, and campaigned in the downtown Toronto riding of Riverdale. He finished a distant third against the winner, Jim Renwick of the New Democratic Party.

Drainville himself later joined the NDP, and in 1989 was arrested for protesting the province's clearcutting practices in the Northern Ontario forests around Temagami. He also stood with Chief Gary Potts and the Teme-Augami-Anishinabai people in their 60 year legal battle to claim their lands in Temagami. He was fined and sent to jail in North Bay for a week in March 1991. Drainville was NDP candidate in the riding of Victoria—Haliburton in the 1990 provincial election. This east-central Ontario seat was not regarded as winnable – indeed, no NDP candidate in the riding had ever finished higher than third place, behind the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives. However, the NDP under Bob Rae won an unexpected majority government in the election, and Drainville won the riding by 6,520 votes over his nearest opponent.

Drainville served as a parliamentary assistant from 1990 to 1992, and as a Deputy Speaker from 1992 to 1993. Drainville's most high profile role in the NDP Government was as Chair of the Select Committee on Ontario in Confederation. He oversaw a massive constitutional consultation process during the Charlottetown Accord negotiations. Eventually his loyalty to the Rae government became increasingly tenuous. Drainville emerged as an ally of Peter Kormos in the NDP caucus, and frequently opposed the policies of the Rae government from a left-wing perspective. On April 28, 1993, he resigned from NDP caucus to protest the Rae government's decision to bring casinos into the province. He continued to sit in the legislature as an independent. Later in the year, he voted against the Rae government's Social Contract legislation.

Drainville resigned from the legislature on September 27, 1993, and declared himself an independent candidate in the 1993 federal election. He finished a distant fourth against Liberal John O'Reilly in the federal Victoria—Haliburton riding, though he did outpoll the official NDP candidate by over a thousand votes.

Drainville later realigned himself with the federal NDP, and worked within the Quebec wing. He ran as an official NDP candidate in the 1997 election in the Quebec riding of Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, but again finished a distant fourth with only 649 votes. It may be noted that the NDP has long been relatively weak in Quebec, particularly since the emergence of the Bloc Québécois, and such a finish was not uncommon.

Drainville was elected to the City Council of the Ville de Percé for two four year terms representing sector 7 of that municipality from 1994-2002. He also served as President of Seacoast Publications which publishes the only English Newspaper East of Quebec City from 1994 to 1995. In 2004 he founded and is a Trustee of the Gaspé Ecumenical Chaplaincy Foundation established to respond to the social health and spiritual needs of seniors on the Gaspé coast.

Drainville was elected to the Council of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada in 2004, at a meeting in St. Catharines, Ontario. At the same meeting, he seconded a successful motion for the Anglican Church in Canada to "affirm the sanctity and integrity of adult same-sex relationships". In 2006 he was appointed by the Council of General Synod to The Canadian Council of Churches as one of their representatives.

On October 12, 2007, while he was serving as Archbishop's Missioner in the Diocese of Quebec, Drainville was elected Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese at a special Electoral Synod. He was ordained to the episcopate on January 18, 2008. [1] He will become diocesan bishop when the current Diocesan, Archbishop Bruce Stavert, retires in 2009.

This bio reaffirms my faith ... in some Anglicans, and Geraldine will have news for her dining group for the week.

  Oh look it's snowing again....

   Yay!

Glad to see you were not caught out on the hwy with others in NS Sharon, when I saw that on the news I immediately thought of  you, and a friend  who is living there, from here, taking her Masters in Women's studies. 

We are right now getting our second snowfall of the year, first one came a couple of days before Halloween, but melted within hours. Extremely strange  late snowfall for the valley floor of the Rockies too.  Even more strange is that the ground is not frozen yet and neither are the lakes and streams. Last year, and most years, at this time we had been out shovelling at least a couple of times.

Our cats are quite upset of course as they had been enjoying the late snowfall almost as much as we have. They yelled to go out, and went running past me to get out, only to turn around and run back quicker than they had dashed out. Of course they believe somehow it is my fault as I got quite the nasty looks.

___________________________________________________________
"watching the tide roll away"

Question: What is the square footage of the addition, Mr. B. And is there a "shed" roof above it, attached to the main roof? Was there not a peaked roof added above the trailer?

How did the guy enter the addition attic...through the roof vent? There must be a fair amount of room in that attic to allow movement of a person down as far as the sill at the roof/ceiling junction? Did he find the underside of the roof dripping wet or just damp?

Does the roof collect snow and turn it to ice at the overhang? Or is the roof kept bare by heat lost into the attic?

The main thing is the vapour barrier, its placement and integrity.

It is down against the warm ceiling and the insulation (question how much and what type) lies above it?

 But the moisture got in there somehow, Mr. B.

The main thing is the vapour barrier, its placement and integrity. 

Is it down against the warm ceiling?  And how many inches of insulation (and what type) lies above  the vapour barrier?

Right.

The increased ventilation flow could be enough to do the job for you.

But close up the tile. The moist air from inside your house is going up there with the heat, and when the weather gets cold enough again, it will be noticed.

If you don't have any leakage into the attic along the joint between trailer and addition, or around a stack penetrating the ceiling, then the source of the moisture remains a mystery. Good luck.

(Bring the insulation to more than 1 foot depth when you get a chance next summer, however - and the same for the main attic - and save some wood.

This week we have been alternating snow, rain and freezing rain. Temperatures have already fluctuated from minus 12 to plus 12. The rest of the week is forecast to follow this pattern.

It's been very cold here.  We're just off a windchill warning for the last two days (-45 with w/c!), but it's still -25 this morning.  Too cold to run the dogs, but the ice rink in the back yard is coming along nicely.

I wouldn't mind a little more snow.  It doesn't snow when it gets this cold.  All the moisture's frozen out of the air already.  The wind sucks the moisture out of your skin the second you put your nose out the door.

Hoodeet (JW)

It would be really helpful to know from which
part of the country each of you is writing.  (I'm on the east
coast, where some local fishermen have found the odd tropical fish near
our shores lately. Or perhaps it's a maritime urban legend.)

Tommy_Paine wrote:

"Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold, it stabbed like a driven nail,"

We get treated to that from time to time.  But mostly it's freeze/thaw through most of the winter in the southern great lakes region.  I find it a pain in the ass.   Here, it's not snow that's the real problem, but ice.

 

 

 

Here the problem is mud.  The snow came so quick and so deep that the ground never froze.  We have had so much rain since spring there was just no where for it to go so the ground was saturated.  Deep ruts everywhere and trying to clean it up is useless as it just runs away.

In our barn yard I even just dumped large round straw bales around to try and soak it up.  First time I have ever had to do that.  Thankfully their housing remains dry.  In fact it was so wet here we had planned on doing some construction work in and around the barn, but we were never able to do it because there was a large clay mud hole right in the middle of where we had to go to do the work.

Even the rain of Sunday night, Monday morning didn't bare enough ground for it to freeze.  This is going to be a miserable effin winter I think.  Thankfully I did get the snow blower on the tractor for this storm if it comes.

Dollop?  I have noticed that trend.  I guess when the weather is no longer quite so predicatable in terms of the rythm of the seasons you throw caution to the wind.  The worse I heard was last year when they actually used the term "snow-magaddon" in a bulliten for a major storm system.  Someone needs to play more solitaire on the computer at work and calm down a bit I think.

My Dad always talked about a skiff of snow.  That was just a small amount- sort of a dusting I guess.  Neither of us could ever figure out where that came from.  He got it from his Dad.

We have that yellow clay too.  It is a bit like pig shit.  Once stuck on your boots or clothing, it ain't ever coming off no matter how hard you try, some will still be sticking to you.

It snowed hard in SJ yesterdaywith many accidents. They even postponed the 2 p.m. exams at the university for 24 hours.

9 posts until this thread is closed for length.

I made my cob shed from that type of pig shit clay mixed with sand and straw. And this year I gave it a few coatings of limewash to make it semi waterproof.

I have always wondered why cob HAS to be mised by hand and sculpted by hand too. (Because the environmentalist hippy movement took it over, i guess?)

 I mix by wheelbarrow.  Seriously this material could be really useful for buildings if people just used forms made from expanded metal (to allow it to dry) and mixed with machines.  Lots of low outbuildings for animals could be made with it. It is very cheap.

Artic outflow?  Guess that means the artic is now warmer because a bunch of cold has left it and  has came to us? I know people will be using the cold snap as proof that global warming is not happening. 

"Seriously this material could be really useful for buildings..."

How does it stand up to wet weather, though? 

I booked off today and made plans which involve being indoors. 
I'm enjoying looking out the window.  Oshawa is only pretty when
it's totally covered in something.

I also arranged this year for a sevice to do our snow.

I'm lookin' good. 

This is a tagline. It has nothing to do with the comments posted above. Just a tagline...really. Please disregard.

I'm going to close this for length and open a new one in the "out and about" forum.