It seem like no matter the larger weather pattern this year, it’s all pretty much the same for us here in BC. El Nino just brought historic storms to the entire state of California complete with tornados and destructive rain plus more wind and rain to Arizona and into New Mexico. And once that dies down it looks like another big Arctic Oscillation event is setting up to drive lots of cold air down into the mid-West and Southern US.

So that means more of the same for us. If you hate snow, rejoice. It looks increasely *un*likely that we’re going to get any.

That said, I wanted to point out an article on the CBC today about an unfortunate Inuit man near Resolute on the Northwest Passage of the Arctic.

He was hunting on the ice a couple days ago, and all of a sudden the ice broke away.

Now it is the end of January, and while the annual ice coverage peak doesn’t generally come until March. This event does seem to highlight the fact that the Arctic sea ice seems to be undergoing great change.

I highly recommend viewing this video from a scientist at the University of Manitoba.

(Update: Did I call it? ;) Wind Warning now issued for all of Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland… look for the barometer to head towards 97kpa. The closer it gets, the stronger shot we will receive. Up to 80kph)

You might have noticed the barometer value up top is in the yellow. That generally means one thing. Wind!

The GFS model is saying we’ll get down to 98kpa tonight. We’re certainly on our way.

We should get some moderate rain tonight before the wind comes. Just 20-25 in the forecast so shouldn’t be a risk of flooding. We’re looking at about half the amount this storm than we did the past two.

The GFS windogram says we’re in for only 15knot winds. This is actually the first time I’ve used the windogram for our area, so we’ll see how accurate it is. I have a feeling it underestimates greatly as EC generally does as well.

And some of you might like to know. We got a visit on Friday from Dr. Andrew Weaver, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2007 with the IPCC. He was here to take some pictures of our weather station as it is part of his islandweather.ca network and to install new stations on Alberni Elementary and Maquinna Elementary. My wife met him, without realizing his fame :) I was not home from work yet. Bummer!

Anyway, stay safe out there! And hey, end of January/beginning of February is still looking cool, possibility of snow in time for the Olympics? (Imagine a giant dump of snow on Vancouver on February 13! OMG hahah)