Victoria. BC Weather Emergency! :)

Just got this via email this morning. So much of an in-joke, I had to share!


Subject: Victoria BC --Wintertime Emergency

A Chronology:

- 5:35 p.m. Environment Canada predicts two to five
centimetres of snow will fall on Victoria within a 24-hour period.
Television weatherman reads the forecast on-air, turns white and
faints.

- - 5:40 p.m. Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe issues immediate
appeal for federal assistance. Prime Minister Paul Martin promises to
send in the army.

- - 8:45 p.m. Victorians begin queuing at tire stores,
leaving vehicles in line overnight to be first served in morning.

- - 10:15 p.m. It turns out B.C.'s last army base, CFB
Chilliwack, closed in 1998. Martin promises to send in Navy instead.

- - 10:20 p.m. Navy announces ship deployment to San Diego
and Hawaii for "security reasons." Conservative Leader Stephen Harper
suggests Prime Minister call Quebec advertising agencies to shovel the
snow, "since that's where the Liberals have spent all our money
anyway."

- - 6:22 a.m. Temperature plunges. Word spreads that a man
has found ice on his windscreen. . Curious neighbours gather to watch
him scrape it off with credit card. One motorist, a former Albertan,
claims use of mysterious "defrost" switch on dashboard can aid in
process.

- - 8:15 a.m. Terrified downtown skateboarders lose toques to
menacing mob of balding, middle-aged men. "We tried to run," they say,
"but these stupid baggy-assed pants made us fall down."

- - 9:30 a.m. Hardware stores sell both of their snow
shovels. Islanders begin cobbling together implements made from kayak
paddles, umbrellas, plywood, cookie sheets, boogie boards and heavy
leather sandals.

- - 10 a.m. Golfers switch to orange balls. Cricket players,
anxious not to repeat the ugly "snow blower incident" of the Blizzard
of '96, switch to orange uniforms.

- - 12 Noon. Word of impending West Coast snowfall tops
newscasts across Canada. Saskatoon hospitals report epidemic of
sprained wrists related to viewers high-fiving one another.

- - 1:20 p.m. Elementary schools call in grief counsellors.
Grief counsellors refuse to go, citing lack of snow tires.

- - 2:30 p.m. Rush hour begins early as office workers come
down with mysterious illness and bolt for home. Usual traffic snarl is
compounded by large number of four-wheel-drives abandoned by side of
road.

- - 2:50 p.m. Airplanes are grounded and ferries docked. No
travel link between Vancouver Island and rest of the world. Victoria
Times-Colonist headline: "Mainland Cut Off From Civilisation."

- - 3:22 p.m. Prime Minister Martin announces Canada's DART
rapid-response team can be on the ground within six months. "We can't
leave Victoria to deal with 225 centimetres of snow on its own," he
tells Mayor Lowe. "Um, that's two-to-five centimetres, not
two-two-five," replies the mayor. The prime minister curses and hangs
up.

- - 3:33 p.m. Provincial government responds to crisis by
installing slot machines in homeless shelters.

- - 4:10 p.m. At behest of Provincial Emergency Program,
authorities begin adding Prozac to drinking water.

- - 4:15 p.m. Fears of food shortage lead to alarming scenes
of violence and looting. Grocery shoppers riot across the city, except
in affluent Oak Bay area, where residents hire caterers to do rioting
for them.

- - 4:30 p.m. Bracing for the arrival of snow, the city is
gripped by an eerie stillness reminiscent of Baghdad on the eve of the
invasion. Searchlights comb darkening sky for first signs of
precipitation.

- - 4:48 p.m. Panic ripples across region as word comes in
that first flakes have fallen. False alarm. "Flakes" turn out to be
nothing more than anthrax spores released by terrorists. An uneasy
calm returns to city.

- - 5:40 p.m. Weatherman, shaking uncontrollably, tells
viewers that snow warni

 

*looks at thermometer*

*sigh* I needed that

 

You're very welcome, Berx. My pleasure. I was thinking of you guys when I read it. How have things been?

Jasper feels too far a memory.


*Derisa*

 

its really warm now, its only -15

 

Aye too long (and next summer's too far away *hint, hint* )

Yeah, it's a balmy -14 here now. How's you guys doin'?

 

Don't kill me? Our roads are clear. Temperature is about 4, and it could get as high as ten later today, and 12 later this week.

It snowed for the weekend of the eighth and ninth, but then cleared, until we had some frozen rain on Saturday night last. Now that's turned to regular rain, and all that remains of the snowman the kids built on the lawn is a small, and diminishing heart of snow.

It's only one of the reasons I love my hometown.


*Derisa*

 

I won't kill ye. But I'll make ye pay

It's supposed to get up to +2 today and after -35 temps that's frigging plenty for me

 

Yes. That is rather amusing. Of course, I've lived in various regions of this country, including places where there is habitually 16 or more feet of snow and temperatures average -25 C every winter. Snow in Victoria and the lower mainland can, unfortunately, be extremely nasty because the combination of the warming trend from Japanese current (please look it up on the Internet if you are unfamiliar with the term), the Pinapple Express coming up from Hawaii and an Arctic front causes dumps of excessively damp snow. These produce ice on the highways, a thin layer of black ice on top, and a covering of snow.

Under these conditions ---- hey, I'm sorry everyone --- but it is very difficult for even the most accomplished individual (those familiar with genuine winter driving conditions) to operate their vehicle in a safe manner. This may be because they assume they know what they're doing and drive like it's winter back east (that's the Interior of B.C. and east for you Ontario, Quebec and Maritimers people, or ex- inhabitants of those provinces). My thoughts. I can remember roofs collapsing, porches and sundecks being torn off and animals dying in the winter of 1996.

Such is life on the West Coast!