Photo by Points North

This February has seen triple the usual amount of snow falling on our streets, lawns, trees, and heads. Snow started falling last year, and at first, Torontonians were none too happy and slipped, slided into cover. Now we shrug over 10 cm, as we did yesterday. Perhaps, too, Torontonians finally discovered the usefullness of snow tires and relearnt how to drive in the snow, and so it no longer fazes us. I hope white winters continue. There is nothing more depressing than looking at brown on the ground and grey in the sky.

The latest freeze-to-thaw-to-freeze has kept the winds howling downtown. Winds were so high in the financial district that the police closed Wellington Street west of Yonge Street. Parts of the CIBC sign have loosened so its probably best to steer clear from Commerce Court for awhile. Well there’s always the PATH.

Photo by Points North

I’d vaguely paid attention to the city’s interesting new snow removal policy — let nature do it — but now I understand their new attitude. If you look out from way up on high, the sun seems to be melting all that snow, not much of the white stuff left…compared to a couple of days ago anyway. And then you walk out the front door and enter a tunnel of snow, banks knee-deep high, then hip-high, and finally waist-high. You step out onto your friendly neighbourhood road where surely the going will be easier, the snow ruts being only calf-high. But mushy is harder to walk on than packed.

The weather forecasters said there would only be a few flurries on Saturday, just lake effect flakes, they said before the big storm would hit. I’m not sure who underestimated that lake effect more: the forecasters or the city, for the city thought it wasn’t worth hauling the plows out for, according to the media, until well after the real storm hit, leading to more and more interesting driving on the day the forecasters said go out and shop for tomorrow shall be impassable. And today as we face more flurries this week, we’d better get used to those snow ruts rising as the city believes that if there’s a sun, even if it’s behind crying clouds, there’s no need for a plow. Their years-old policy of not clearing laneways has grown to encompass side streets. Our tax dollars are far better spent on parking lots and growing capital debt than on basic city services. Well, at least there is one good thing — the struggle to walk out of our side streets to the cleared main streets should build up those flabby thigh muscles and burn that spare tire. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

In honour of Environment Canada coming in 8th in Yahoo! Canada’s top searches for 2007, I shall blog about the weather.

Photo by Points North

It’s so cold here in Toronto, the weather forecasters are overestimating the temps by several degrees because they can hardly believe it’s winter in December. It’s so cold here in Hogtown, it’s bringing back memories, memories of snow from November to March, memories of cold so sharp your breath froze right in front of you, memories of a sun so bright it hurt to look at its reflection in the snow, memories of real winters with real white Christmases, memories of snow angels and snow forts, memories of red-tipped noses and cheeks glowing and hands warming around a mug of hot cocoa. It’s nostalgia time here in T.O. for people of a certain age and for a time when cold wusses didn’t live in the city, but snow fans who couldn’t wait to ski and skate and throw snowballs at glowering adults who promptly threw back, and for a time when the city plowed the streets so fast one could hardly believe there had been snow on them, except for the thin conga lines of tracks down the sidewalks. Yes, Torontonians, it’s winter time again.

Photo by Points North

Although today is cold and grey, it’s spring, a time when a person wants to leap out of the house and plonk oneself into a nice comfy muskoka chair and soak up the sun; when a person wants to switch off the computer and pick up a book; and when, once having drunk in enough rays, been mooned by a few birds, and become comatose over a trashy novel, a person will join a friend on a newly opened outdoor patio for a European-style coffee break, preferably one that affords a view that morphs from people watching to watching smashing pink sunsets.

Well, the long weekend has come and gone. My wife and I really wanted to get out of the city. The weather was atrocious. We had been stuck in a rut for a while. We were bored out of our skulls from socialising and sipping tea with friends and needed a road trip. Thought about going to Montreal. The weather was worse there and for a couple who don’t enjoy partying and going out to clubs, it was a bit futile since walking around the city was out of the question with the weather. Then we thought of driving to Boston. Same scenario. Then we’re like fine, lets go somewhere even warmer than that. And we picked Myrtle Beach. The whole week leading up to the weekend it had been 25C in South Carolina The whole week after the weekend was being forecasted as 25C. Just the entire weekend was going to be below 10C. That really pissed me off. I had been prepared to drive fifteen hours to be in a different environment with my wife where I’d feel like I was away from Toronto and it was just too damn cold. Then I started wondering if other Torontonians were stuck in the same conundrum. Were you guys stuck with the idea of wanting to do something and not having anything to do? My question to you all is, what are my options? Where else could I have gone. Skiing season is over so I couldn’t do that either. It wasn’t just the cold, I knew as long as I was in Ontario it would be cold. So at that point I’d settle for doing even touristy things locally within an hour or two’s worth of drive. Are there any parts of Southern Ontario that are worth visiting in times like this? As a purebred city boy, I pose the question out to you readers. Are there any areas worth visiting at the edges of Georgian Bay for example? Or anywhere else for that matter.

Eventually, I ended up with a generic weekend of going bowling with a few friends, playing some trivial pursuit and ending up at the Ontario Science Center. But all that didn’t solve my solution of getting out of the city. If you guys were stuck in the same situation, where all could you/would you go for a weekend within a few hours drive?

For all who care, this is the forecast for the next 5 days.

Rushed back to the burbs on the GoTrain in time to skate at CBMK. It was great catching up with the locals and skating the Pole Bowl and mini. Doesn’t happen enough!!! Nothing like a heated indoor skatepark to melt away the return of winters wrath!

It was also great to see a few from the Rudy’s Skatepark (199? - 1992 R.I.P.) era too… The GTA has had it’s share of amazing skaters…

OK, everyone talks about the weather in Toronto, so who wants to read about it here, eh? But after the winter that wasn’t a winter morphing into icy winds and a few small snowfalls here and there, I just gotta celebrate Toronto’s blizzard of the year. Finally we have had a real Canadian snow dump here in the snow-free side of Lake Ontario! And here is how it all began.

Photo by Points North

To see how it ended, check out my Flickr Blizzard set, a microcosm of my blizzard experience.

Blizzard 2007 - a photoset on Flickr

Sky Photo by Points North

Nothing but endless grey skies. This is not supposed to be Toronto. November used to be grey skies and the beginning of snow. December brought in a few blue skies and more snow falling. January froze us to the marrow and blinded our eyes with sun and deep blue skies and glistening snow. February continued the bright blue deep freeze. And greyness only returned with March.

Now it’s grey grey grey. More and more each winter. No wonder we elected the same stuck-in-the-dark-ages, get-nothing-revitalized cabal. We’ve lost all hope. We watch chunks of Gardiner drop, shrug our heads back into our coats, and carry on, knowing nothing will change. Toronto is doomed.

I hate you grey sky!

Is it so easy to tell which was early November and which was taken yesterday?

Click the pics and the date will show up in the file name.