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| Before I get into the details about the drive and the wx
along the way, you really need to understand the synoptic conditions in order to get a
sense of just how bad things really were. A sharp cold front plowed south with a deepening
low. The temperature fell all morning and all day long. The original forecast high of -12C
was quickly replaced with a high of -18C which was made worse by strong NW winds. In KW
the temperature dropped to -19 shortly around midday and from there west things just
became colder. The image above was taken on hwy 7 westbound. The strong sunshine combined
with salt, helped to melt some of the snow but as Eric and I would discover outside of KW
no one likes to use salt, especially when it is needed! |
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| This large drift was just east of Stratford. The roads were
very poorly maintained and very icy. At times wind gusts would push the car over the
yellow line, it would literally just slide over and the only thing one could do as a
driver would be fight it and pull into the wind. |
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| Plows near hwy 23 and 83 with the squalls visible on the
horizon. The roads in Stratford were terrible, there was a good inch of compacted ice on
all of them, not a grain of salt, and it was almost impossible to accelerate at the stop
lights. Not to mention it to forever to get through the town. A some old people almost hit
e as they tried to accelerate and slide horizontally towards me. |
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| Hwy 83, a few km west of Exeter the edge of the squall cuts
across the landscape. |
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| This was hwy 21 in Grandbend, driving in there was some
moderate snow but under the squall, there was almost no wind and the snow soon eased. |
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| Heading South on hwy 21 towards Forest, a large gap was
visible between the squalls. |
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| Between the squalls there was a combination of synoptic
winds and mesoscale winds. As the squalls ran inland they still tried to rise for a couple
km, this sucked in air and created low pressure zones between the bands which was enhanced
by the synoptic flow. The result was intense blowing snow between bands and in this case a
big eddy. |
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| This was probably the worst wx we had seen so far during
the trip and I was hoping it would not get much worse, although Eric was having the time
of his life. I knew based on the reports coming in that things were just going to get
worse. |
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| The first casualty |
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| The second |
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| Vis started to get very bad, take a look at the telephone
poles, notice how their bases are hidden? That's blowing snow obscuring the view and that
4 meters between the ground and sky just where the snow was blowing was the viewing space
I was driving in. |
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| Getting worse... |
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| Now I could not see oncoming traffic and they could not see
me! |
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| This was really bad! |
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| Finally things cleared a bit as Eric and I entered the town
of Forest and we came across another accident. |
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| Then abruptly things let up and the wind died down. I
noticed this to my SE and any weather freak would think the same thing, TCU lol. |
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| This guy is my hero! Within 10 minutes blizzard like
conditions returned. |
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| The LCBO was really a busy place considering the wx. |
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| Heading towards downtown Forest. |
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| Downtown Forest. |
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| Eric was loving it, so much so he turned into this scary
guy covered in snow. The temp was about -20C at this time. |
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| Eventually, it was time to leave since evening was
approaching and the last place you would want to be was Forest. |
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| This guy was still here, and we are not too sure what
happened? |
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| Driving back was worse than driving down since we were not
cutting into the winds and vis was crap! The symbol on the hood of the car vanished at
times. |
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| This was the worst blowing snow I have ever seen,
visibility was 0, I distinctly remember Eric expression when the hood of the car vanished,
the only visible portion was the intake vent near the wipers, but anything past that was
gone. I can seriously say I was driving totally blind and worried. The shoulder was
useless since the snow was so dense it felt no different than the road. |
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| Eventually we managed to escape the mini blizzard, but it
seemed like it took forever! No matter what these video captions do not do the conditions
justice. There were so many little things which were missed, my wipers froze solid at one
point in time, the washer fluid did not help much since it would just add more ice to the
blades, filming outside was extremely difficult with the cold, driving was very difficult
with the wind and ice plus the fact that experiencing the conditions is much worse than
ever watching a video of them could be. |