17 February 2016

Ottawa Heritage Day 2016 and Snow

When I wrote Lett it Snow yesterday I hadn't intend it to be taken so literally. Had I known it's unlikely I'd have gone downtown to Heritage Day at Ottawa City Hall. The return bus journey after the bulk of the snow had fallen was a nightmare.

Mary-Lou Simac and I staffed the BIFHSGO table along with Anne Sterling. Although attendance was down from previous years there was still a good crowd.

Below, from  Environment Canada's Weather Summary on Tuesday evening, are snowfall amounts received as of 6 pm Tuesday:

Ottawa Airport 50 cm
Gatineau Airport 34 cm
Casselman 35 cm as of 6 PM
Moose Creek 21 cm as of 6 PM
Cornwall 20 cm plus several hours freezing rain as of 6 PM
Brockville 35 to 40 cm estimated
Singleton 45 cm
Kemptville 40 to 45 cm estimated
Kingston Airport 31 cm estimated
Trenton Airport 22 cm
Cobourg 15 cm estimated
Welland 15 cm estimated
St Catharines (on escarpment) 22 cm as of 6 PM
Fort Erie 25 cm as of 6 PM

The total snowfall for the day will be greater as snow continued until 9 pm.

In the weather summary Environment Canada wrote this is "a new largest 1 day snowfall amount on record for that location."

Did you ancestors struggle through any of these snow events?

The previous one-day records snowfall was 40.6 cm on 2 March 1947 at the airport while 48.3 cm was recorded at the Central Experimental Farm that day.

Looking back further the greatest one day snowfall at the Farm was 55.9 cm recorded on 29 January 1894.

There was a three day snowfall on 3-5 April 1885 of 101.6 cm.

2 comments:

Glenn W said...

A heritage snowfall for Heritage Day ... be careful what you volunteer for in the future.

Mike More said...

Apparently the heaviest snowfall happened between 10am and 2pm while we were at the Heritage Day activities, other than the time spend standing outside when the fire alarm went off. The City should consider hiring Daniel Richer, our Town Crier, to tape their PA announcements. :-)