This is a repeat of the last post… because it’s been such a nice few days! No complaints from here… and it’s supposed to be 20C next week Woohoo!!

This afternoon was just beautiful and we can expect more for the rest of the week!

We got up to a pleasant 22.7C, no records, but certainly well above average.

Should get a little more rain for those April flowers before the month is out, but hopefully this little stretch bodes well for the summer.

In Global climate news… the buzz is that the La Nina current is diminishing and will be officially declared over within the next week or so. According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderground.

Nearly all the model forecasts for the Niño 3.4 region predict neutral conditions for the August – October peak of hurricane season. Four out of 21 El Niño models are predicting an El Niño event for hurricane season; three are predicting a La Niña, and fourteen are predicting neutral conditions.

For us, that should mean a fairly average fall and winter. But it’s still very early in the year.

This promise by Carole James and the BC NDP to axe the “Gas Tax” as they call it is regressive and just plain dangerous for our environment. Not only that, it shows a complete lack of principles. I hope that my readers here will support me in telling Carole James to reverse her policy.

I’ve decided to create a Facebook Group to try to gather people, of all political stripes, but particularly those who feel they are less likely to vote NDP now because of the Axe the Carbon Tax campaign.

Click here to go to the Group.

I hope that for those of you who read my last post about “Axing the Tobacco Tax”, you realised that I was being wholly sarcastic and silly. My point was that like when Louis St. Laurent introduced the first Tobacco tax in 1950, there is a lot of opposition to the Carbon Tax from those who do not want to change their ways.

Lets face it. We are addicted to the lifestyle that fossil fuels have provided for us. I am too. It is no secret that when combined with education, taxes help to change peoples behaviour. It has worked with smoking. It will work with Carbon. Like him or lump him, Gordon Campbell has done the right thing by imposing his Carbon Tax on British Columbian consumers, businesses and industry. No, the policy is not perfect by any stretch, but it is a start, and a strong statement to the rest of North America especially that BC is taking Climate Change seriously no matter the short term political cost.

Carole James needs to recognize that the Carbon Tax is the *right* policy. She must concede that, and then show how she would improve it. I believe she has alienated a large amount of people with this policy… there is no doubt she has alienated many environmental groups.

So please, join the Facebook Group.

Tell your friends and family and pass along the link. There is still time for Carole James to say her Mea Culpa and change her policy.

That’s the hope anyway. Should be OK tomorrow. Was a beautiful afternoon today. Hopefully we can get out into the garden before the rains come!

Oh, and just a heads up, anyone using IE8 or a virus program… if you get errors when the page tries to refresh the data, you need to set your security settings to allow Javascript more access or simply setting the security to “Medium” should work as well.

Hey everyone.

Well, Saturday and Sunday weren’t great, but this morning is sure looking nice! We should get some sun today and tomorrow and it might even get warm if the clouds don’t interrupt too much!

I’ve uploaded the rest of last weeks webcam movies to http://www.youtube.com/alberniweather. I am working on automating that procedure a little more so that its not as onerous a process for me on a daily basis… that way hopefully I can get the stuff uploaded daily rather than sporadically catching up.

Put those snow tires away! Barring a major reversal in the forecasts for the next month I think it is quite safe to say that we wont be seeing any more freezing daytime temperatures. The short, long, and extra long range forecasts** all show above zero readings right to the end of the month. It might dip to a degree or so above or below zero in the early morning hours, but I’m sure it will be pretty short lived if it gets down there.

You can count on a few more blustery, rainy days, but at least it will be warm! May Long Weekend and the unofficial start to summer is only a few weeks away!

**You can see the custom long range forecasts in Weather Reports, Custom NOAA GFS… “WQC” as the Code and select one of the GFS based models. I usually just get the Temperature (2m), Surface Pressure, and Accumulated Precipitation.