NH Winter/SH Summer 2021-2022 Discussion Thread

Fuck icy roads so much!

We had an initial major snow storm in mid-November that left everything caked in ice under the snow and gave us terrible road conditions for a while. Eventually things improved and the city got the streets cleared and we had a few days of actually driving on pavement, then on Thursday last week we got an unexpected major snowfall that once again left a layer of ice under everything and the roads have been total garbage since then. Major roads are okay but almost all intersections are quite icy, and most smaller streets are skating rinks.

I've had my ABS kick in more times in the past three weeks than I normally do in an entire year. One of the worst feelings while driving is when you have the brake pedal to the floor but the car doesn't slow down. Thankfully no accidents or serious close calls, but plenty of sketchy ass situations. And this with high quality winter tires I bought last year, and me driving under the speed limit on bad roads (as most other people are doing, thankfully). Unfortunate the City Of Saskatoon is very slow at road clearing. Got sand everywhere at least, but it's not a substitute for actually clearing out the ice.

Yesterday morning we got another snowfall of a few centimetres, and it actually improved road conditions - a first for me! Never thought I'd actually enjoy driving on a few cm of fresh snow, but here we are. That's how shitty our roads have been lately.

102cm of snow in Nelaug, southern norway, far surpassing the old snow-depth record for December there.



Impressive considering Nelaugs low altitude (142masl), and the high average mean temperature for December (-0.9C)

Freezing Friday as Sydney temps plummet in hail-producing storms
( source : Weatherzone )

It's a freezing Friday afternoon in Sydney by December standards, after the morning dawned clear and sunny with the promise of a warm, sunny end to the working week.
But things changed very rapidly just before midday, as a line of storms encircled the city from the south and west.
The storms soon moved across the city, combining with a southerly change and lingering showers to send the mercury plummeting in all suburbs.
Between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm, Sydney (Observatory Hill) dropped from 21.2°C to 14.4°C.

Image: Sydney's temperature and rainfall observations during the last 24 hours, showing a rapid temperature drop around midday on Friday.

Temps fell to even lower levels at weather stations all across the city. For example:
It was just 13.1°C at 1 pm at Terrey Hills on the northern beaches.
Temps fell to just 14.1°C at midday in Richmond in the city's far northwest.
Holsworthy, in the city's southwest, copped the storms earlier than most other suburbs and fell to just 12.3°C at 11:18 am.
Small hail and loud grumbles of thunder were reported in many suburbs with the onset of the storms, but a gloomy rain has now set in as we write this story.
Not sure whether you’d bat or bowl - Clark Reserve Kearns/Raby #SydneyStorm pic.twitter.com/7sFN4YhgwO

Around 2 pm on Friday afternoon, it was still pretty miserable in Sydney with temperatures not much warmer than 15°C in most suburbs. To put that into perspective:
Sydney's average daily maximum in the coolest month, July, is 16.4°C.The coldest December maximum on record was 15.2°C back in 1957. Today won't come close to breaking that record because, as mentioned, it had already reached 21.1°C earlier in the day, and could again possibly reach or even exceed that sort of temp later today.
Newcastle, barely two hours north of Sydney, reached 24.1°C at 1:50 pm, with storms yet to penetrate that far north.
All indications are that the rain should clear from most Sydney suburbs by mid-afternoon and the weekend ahead should be mostly clear but cool, with tops around 23°C.

It's very warm and windy today out ahead of a cold front. There was apparently a small grass fire in Norman.

Houston broke its December record high min by 2°F yesterday, as well as tying the December record high.

A prodigiously cold start to December over the eastern side of the Snowies:



Nothing too special here though—as usual with southerly systems.

First time above freezing this month. 0.5C high now.

What I love to see in December