This is a blog-style web page for tracking snow conditions in and around Vancouver. Our brains are highly subjective, so this will be storage so that I can compare years in an unbiased manner by recording exactly what happened. Blog service will be around November 12 - April 1 each year or as conditions permit.
I found a chart today that confirms my suspicions that somehow this "winter" is extra bad. All of the east coast was a beautiful purple negative temperature anomaly, but all the way up the pacific, from California, to Yukon Territory was a bright red. How horrendous is that!?!? Why can't we have a negative temperature anomaly for once?? This is extremely worrisome, and it surely cannot continue. I am having a great deal of trouble trusting the experts who say Vancouver is due for a cold and wet winter overall (especially in December) when it has been so hot and (relatively) dry. It is 3 degrees again and pouring rain, washing away what little snow we have left.
The weather forecast remains grim: Some suggest lots of snow for high elevations, but this "high elevation" is rapidly leaving 1500 m (1000m is minimum needed for any skiing progress). It is 3 degrees and raining on the local mountains, which should be the weather in the city. Look at what the evils of global warming have done to us: What should be our weather at 0m is now the weather at 1000+ m. What a disaster.
Today I went up Grouse Mountain to check out how bad things really are. Let's just say they aren't quite ready for skiing. They most likely have some kind of refrigerator array set up on The Cut which they say has been producing snow since September. However, even this is not enough to offset Global Warming. Perhaps, Paradise is skiable... if you are an expert that can dodge the holes and ditches. While I was there, there was a small amount of snowfall that promptly switched to rain, then stopped. All this while I look on the internet and see "CANADA TO EXPERIENCE CRAZY COLD WINTER" - This is MORE EASTERN BIAS. Whenever the global audience says "Canada", they mean the East coast only. Nobody cares about the south coast, even though we are definitely the most affected by global warming (maybe with the exception of the arctic). For the second year in a row, while Eastern Canada experiences all the cold and snow they could dream of and more, we in Vancouver are left looking at month after month of "above average temperatures" and a distinct lack of Canadian-ness in weather.
Byebye snow already. Somehow, despite high-elevation forecasts showing a maximum temperature of zero degrees, the temperature reached one degree and promptly started raining. All of the hard progress this last week is now going in the bin before our very eyes. It is more unlikely than ever that skiing will open three weeks behind schedule.
Temperatures remained near average in the city today. There are 3 new centimetres of snow on the local mountains. Nothing of note occured today.
Finally, we are beginning to get somewhere. There are 2 new centimetres of snow on the local mountains. Temperatures remained negative for the entire day. There is a worrying warming trend over the next few days, back up to 10 degrees. Remember what I said about averages: Half the days above, half the days below... So far there has been only one or two days below average temperature, and we have yet to truly go to minus one degrees. Hopefully the forecast is wrong.
As always, our brief period of luck has expired. It is +3 on the mountains. Grouse reports a snow base of 20 cm, just barely beating out Alabama for snowfall. Excellent (sarcastic). As I stare out of the classroom window at the green trees on December 2nd, I am reminded that in Vancouver, we only have 3 seasons now. Isn't is supposed to be a La Nina this year? Isn't it supposed to be cold and wet? It is neither. It is hot and dry.
December is starting off well. We have RMS (recently melted snow, a type of rainfall that is 90% rain and 10% snow) falling at +200m in the city, and heavy snow on the mountains. Hopefully this continues so that ski season can get started!
It was a good day in the city today. There was actual ice around. Except... It's dry as a desert, so no snow for anybody. A radio announcer said "OMG THERZ GONNA B3 SNO TOMORROW", but I fail to see how snow can fall at +4 degrees. On a more positive note, the mountain predicts a high of 1 degree tomorrow which is conducive to snowfall. Maybe we will get some tomorrow and beat florida in snowfall yet.
The mountain/city temperature difference seems to have broken down. Temperatures in the city have returned to near seasonal (~6 degrees), but the mountain was 4 degrees. + 4 degrees! According to a mountaineering book I have, "The north shore mountains are usually 5-10 degrees COLDER than the city." 2 degrees is NOT 5, nor is it 10. Yikes. No snow, as always... Now we are heading into a dry patch that is not cold enough for freezing temperatures on the peaks. What a disaster. Merry Christmas from Global Warming I guess.
It has come to my attention that many leaves are still green on the trees, on NOVEMBER 28. Additionally, some trees are already sprouting like it's April. This is an extreme travesty. We literally have 3 seasons now, spring, summer, and fall. Every year the beginning of spring gets moved up a month. Can it get any worse??? At the very least, temperatures were (average) at 3 degrees low last night in the city. Maybe the mountains will be able to make some artificial snow now.
Today, grouse finally switched to winter mode, though everything shows CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED. It's +4 degrees up there. It seems to me that the weather at 1000m above sea level is the pre-climate change weather in Vancouver. Isn't that disastrous.
In a manner similar to Vancouver during pre-global-warming winters, the snow has immediately gone to crap, what little exists on our local mountains. Temperatures are back above average in the city as November draws to a close in a few days. I read an article in the north shore news (this article) that says we will have a nice and cold December and January. I sincerely hope that this is true, but it is likely overblown headlines for shock effect. Weather predictors have done this before where they make some grand "doom" prediction about snowpocalypse or whatever that makes people like me very excited. Then, everything disappears and nothing happens.
Of course more than a two day streak of under zero temperatures on our mountains is not permitted. Though there was an additional 3cm according to Grouse, it is all turning to rubbish. Grouse mountain started their snow tracking today. Four more days left in November. Of course, temperatures are going back up to 9 degrees in the city over the coming days. Ridiculous.
Despite a recent fall to merely average temperature levels in the city of Vancouver, the snowpack continues to grow from a base of zero on November 23. So far we are just above the level that Florida received last year. Grouse has not yet started their snoow counter, but Cypress reports 11 cm for a base of 15 cm at all elevations. Visible freezing line was ~700m for much of the day.
Finally, winter has started upon the local mountains. The hot streak seems to have ended as temperatures are directly upon the average high of 7 degrees in the city of Vancouver. The point of an average is that half of the days are above the 7 degrees and the other half are below it. This has been total rubbish this month as it seems as if almost every day this month has been above 7 degrees. All of this is of course thanks to our good friend Global Warming. The counters on the local mountains are above zero for the first time up to 4 cm.
This is the gravest winter in recent memory, though I have been counting only since 2020. Somebody made a post on Reddit today saying they hiked the 1400m summit of Pump Peak and it was completely dry. This is a travesty. As always, the west coast is paying the price for the pollution of humanity. Merry Christmas from global warming.