The last week brought all kinds of weather to the National Capital region. Everything from snow, rain, sunshine, high winds,  freezing temperatures and almost hitting the double digits in the plus side of the thermometer. Its been a strange week indeed.

December 21st brought us over 13cm of snow when everything was said and done. With the winds, a lot more ended up being shovelled from driveways. The 22nd and 23rd combined brought a laughable 2cm of snow. On the 24th we got hit with 4.4cm of snow a whopping 8mm of rain. The late evening and early Christmas morning gave us some high winds reaching up to 60km/h. Luckilly the high winds helped to evaporate the water on the streets, but it still made the late night drive on country roads a little nerve racking.

The warm weather on the 27th and 28th helped to thaw out some snow, but it turned our barely plowed side streets into huge skating rinks.

We were snowfall free from the 24th to the 29th, which was a welcomed change. Late in the evening on the 29th and early on the 30th snow covered the ground again with approximately 3cm of snow falling.

I had forgotten that today was the first day of winter. I’m guessing Mother Nature wanted to mark this special occasion with more snow. An unofficial 20cm fell during the day and another 2cm in the evening. During the afternoon, winds reached up to 90 km/h.

The snowplow passed in the afternoon, which was really surprising. Being a side street in the suburbs of Ottawa, we usually don’t see a snowplow for days after a big dump. I’m happy that they came that early, instead of waking up tomorrow morning and having to shovel the mountain of snow left behind by the plow, all while rushing to get my wife to work. Luckily my neighbour came out and chewed away at the mountain of snow with his snowblower.

Another day, another snow storm. We got lucky this past Friday. They were originally calling for 20-30cm of snow, but we ended up getting around 2. Little did we know Mother Nature was just holding back, teasing us, getting our hopes up. I woke up this morning to find my driveway full of white crap again. The Weather Network was saying light snow. Light snow my ass! I couldn’t even see the house across the street! A supposed 10-15 cm of snow was supposed to fall this morning, but with high winds it was more like 30-45cm.

They are calling for another 5-10 cm this afternoon. I couldn’t wait for it to stop snowing, so I had to go out and shovel. By the time I got to the end of the driveway, it didn’t look like I had shoveled much, if at all. I get the feeling that I’ll be out there another 2-3 times this afternoon.  The experts are expecting more snow this week, pretty much every day but Friday. We won’t be having a green Christmas this year!

The rain gave way and the snow returned to our frigid land. An unofficial 8 centimeters of snow fell upon the nation’s capital last night and this morning. The combination of snow, ice and transit strike has turned most roads into utter chaos. The combination of ice, snow and high winds even caused some flight cancellations at the Ottawa International Airport.

Forecasts call for a reprieve from snowfall for tomorrow, but it is expected that Friday will bring a serious winter storm, with a combination of heavy snow and heavy winds.

Yesterday we saw temperatures climb to a balmy 7 degrees celsius. Along with some rain, I observed our snowbanks shrink by a good foot or so. I welcomed to reduced snowbanks with open arms. It will make shovelling the next big snow storm a little bit easier. But with the cold weather returning, the bottom of my driveway and the roads look like an ice skating rink.

Over the weekend we also had a little snow. I was unfortunately not able to take any pictures as I was stuck working.  We had 3.2 cm fall on Saturday and 2.8 cm fall on Sunday, bringing the total accumulation for December to 47.8 cms.

Ottawa got hit with the biggest snowfall of the season so far yesterday and today. Snow fell for more than 24 hours straight without reprieve. Before this snowfall, we had a measly 8cm of snow on the ground. With yesterday’s fall of 30cm of snow, we now have a whopping 38cm of snow, and we haven’t even reached the midpoint of December yet!

Its disparaging when you go out shoveling 6 times in the span of 20 hours, and each time you go out it seems like you didn’t shovel anything at all…