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Death by a thousand snowflakes

In the Old Testament of the Bible, there was a flood that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

When it ended, God promised there would never again be a great flood.

I don’t think he said anything about not having 40 days and 40 nights of snow, which is starting to worry me a little bit right now.

I mean, it’s not heavy snow, but it just keeps coming. It’s like the so-called ‘death by a thousand cuts’, where no one thing is the finishing blow.

If I go somewhere for more than about 20 minutes these days, I know I’ll probably have to brush my car off when I get back. Again, it’s not heavy snow, so it doesn’t take a long time, but it’s just so frustrating knowing I’ll be doing it again  . . . and again . . .

The good news (if there is any) is that things have warmed up in the last week or so. I don’t think I could have handled snow like we’ve had recently if it was still -30.

As long as the temperature stays where it is, I figure I’m going to start walking a bit more. I don’t mind walking in the cold, within reason, but I have no trouble at all walking in the snow, and the city does a good job of clearing the sidewalks quite quickly during snow events.

The other thing that makes me appreciate our weather more is hearing what’s happening in places like the Lower Mainland. Up here, we frequently joke about how all it takes is an eighth of an inch of snow to bring Vancouver to a screeching halt (and we’re not far off), but the last week or so has seen a lot more snow than that in the Lower Mainland.

It was also, of course, a fair bit warmer down south, which meant that was probably pretty heavy snow. I mean, ‘heavy’ in weight, not necessarily ‘heavy’ in terms of how much was falling.

I checked the Environment Canada site for Vancouver on Sunday and found a warning there. They were saying that the previous snow and the current rain (rain in Vancouver? What a surprise!) could lead to flooding as drains clogged up with ice.

Organizers of events like the Prince George Iceman and the two Para-biathlon events coming to Otway in March probably don’t mind the snow, but might want slightly colder weather to make sure it sticks around.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going out to brush off my car – again. I’m not going anywhere, I just want to make sure I know where it is when I need it.

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