Area continues to get walloped with winter storms
If you’re feeling like we’ve had more than our fair share of wintry weather, you’re not wrong. Geoff Coulson of Environment Canada says that data from the Egbert monitoring station, the nearest to Creemore, shows this is one of the snowiest winters since they started measuring snow depths in 2001.
“As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, we’re reporting 56 cm of snow on the ground in Egbert. The long-term average for the month of February is 15 cm,” said Coulson, adding that number is probably even higher in places that experience lake effect.
He said in the last couple of months, we’ve seen a lot of lake effect snow, then within the last week and a half we’ve been hit with three large scale storms.
“Last weekend, we saw significant snowfall accumulations, then on Sunday, winds from the northwest brought lots more snow to parts of Bruce, Grey and Simcoe counties,” Coulson said.
Last winter was quite mild, he said, and this year, temperatures have been closer to seasonal averages but there is still a lot of open water on Georgian Bay.
Temperatures are forecast to be slightly above freezing early next week, so Monday we can expect a mixture of rain and snow. Later in the week, temperatures are expected to dip back below seasonal norms.
“March is still very much a winter month in this part of the country,” said Coulson, so don’t expect to see crocuses coming up any time soon.
While neither the County of Simcoe nor Clearview Township have hard data on the impact to their snow removal budgets at this stage, both have been scrambling to keep up with the weather. Other county operations ,such as garbage pick-up, have also been affected.
Parents have certainly been feeling the impact of the wintry weather. Erika Dixon of the Simcoe County Student Transportation Consortium (SCSTC) says they don’t release statistics on school bus cancellations to the public, but parents with children attending Nottawasaga Creemore Public School say buses have been cancelled 14 days since Dec. 5.
Dixon said SCSTC considers many factors before cancelling buses: road conditions, assessment of current and forecasted weather, assessment of visibility and confirmation whether roads have been plowed.
Safety is the paramount concern, and Dixon says, “parents and guardians make the final decision in determining to send their children to school during inclement weather. If school vehicles are cancelled and schools are open, parents and guardians may transport their children to school and pick them up at the end of the day.”
Trina Berlo photo: Residents dig out Monday from unrelenting snowfall. Many streets in Creemore are down to one lane with steep snowbanks on each side, creating a tunnel effect on sidewalks.
