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Tagged weather

OMGTORNADO!

July 23, 2008 – 6:10 pm | Posted in Montreal

A tornado!* Run for your lives!

*Not actually a tornado

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Videos of the storm

June 11, 2008 – 3:04 am | Posted in Montreal, Video

For those of you who missed it, through the magic of YouTube we have plenty of shaky, noisy home video clips of today’s kinda-freak storm (Cyberpresse also has a photo gallery; The Gazette has galleries of professional and amateur photos):

Close call for window washers at Place Montreal Trust (LCN has some details about this story, The Gazette too — dramatic part’s at the end):

(UPDATE: Also available from another angle in four parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

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Schools closed today

March 10, 2008 – 2:09 am | Posted in Montreal

Here’s the lowdown:

(Decisions apply to all schools and head office unless otherwise indicated)

English CEGEPs:

All open (or at least none say they’re closed)

Universities are usually open through all but the most crippling of snowstorms. Check individual class websites or student portals for details.

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Your guide to media coverage of the 1998 ice storm anniversary

January 5, 2008 – 9:42 pm | Posted in In the news, Media, Montreal, On the Net, Opinion

The floodgates opened this morning on ice storm anniversary stories. Every major local media outlet has something, and many have a lot.

Part of that is because there isn’t much news on the 5th of January. Part is because they’ve had 10 years (with constant electricity) to prepare. And part is because it had such a profound impact on everyone’s lives for two weeks to a month.

This is perhaps the first big project among local media relying on reader-generated content. It’s easy to see why: Everyone remembers the ice storm. The supply of stories is practically infinite.

The problem is that everyone’s story sounds about the same. We were without power. The roads were hard to drive. We had to leave our home and move in with a family member who had power. We communicated with our neighbours for the first time ever. We helped people in need. We were happy to see electricians from the U.S. who came to help. There was a lot of snow and ice.

That’s the problem with user-generated content. It can produce some stunning gems, but most of it is boring filler not worth our time to read.

The archives are fun to look at (particularly the audio/video from the CBC and the PDF pages from The Gazette), to see how different the media and the world was just 10 years ago (67 cents/litre for gas was considered gouging).

Here’s what I’ve found so far (some links via mtlweblog), recommended reading highlighted in bold:

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Trains aren’t running on time

December 19, 2007 – 4:52 pm | Posted in Montreal, Public transit

The Agence métropolitaine de transport has still not recovered from this weekend’s snowstorm, and trains on the Dorion/Rigaud line are still not opreating operating properly, forcing delays during every rush hour since, for a variety of reasons (but basically “snow” and “cold”).

Spokesperson Mélanie Nadeau says she hasn’t seen anything this bad in six years.

Which is the same thing she said Sunday, which was “the worst day since I started.”

And apparently it’s worse than breakdowns in May, when she said nobody could remember anything as bad in 10 years.

How many more worst days is the AMT going to experience?

UPDATE: My mother points out that I misspelled “operating” above. I live with the unending shame.

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It’s another snow day! (mostly)

December 17, 2007 – 2:53 am | Posted in In the news, Montreal

Since people have been Googling about school closures tomorrow (Monday, December 17), here’s a quick list of decisions that have been made as of 11pm Sunday. (Assume “open” means “tentatively open” and check the website before leaving in case they change their minds.)

School boards

(Decisions apply to all schools and head office unless otherwise indicated)

English private schools

(That I could think of, have your butler check the website (or CJAD’s list) if not listed here)

English CEGEPs:

Universities are usually open through all but the most crippling of snowstorms. Check individual class websites or student portals for details.

Doing my part

I was going to do some Christmas shopping today, but because (a) shopping malls amazingly are still closing at 5pm on weekends two weeks before Christmas and (b) I took one look outside, I decided to stay home and be one less strain on the transportation network.

That kept me in perfect position to see the lightning that everyone’s talking about, along with its acoustically suppressed thunder.

UPDATE (Dec. 18): The Journal wonders if the schools jumped the gun and if the closings were really justified.

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