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Week of February 19th 2017

Weekly Temperature
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
Feb 19 Feb 20 Feb 21 Feb 22 Feb 23 Feb 24 Feb 25
High 8 4 9 18 16 5 7
Low 2 -1 0 1 4 1 2

After this week, you’ll have a hard pretty hard time convincing me that the climate is not all messed up!

It’s supposed to be the coldest week of the winter, but the weather was in the double digits.  Not just one, but multiple records broken.

  • On Tuesday February 21st, the high temperature was 9 C, surpassing the previous record high of 5 C set in 2002
  • On Wednesday February 22nd, the high temperature was 18 C, surpassing the previous record high of 9 C
  • On Thursday February 23rd, the high temperature was 16 C, another record on a day when the high temperature on average is -1 C

You get the picture! It’s amazing, but also a little depressing.

Given the tropical weather on Sunday, we decided it might be a good day to try and fly a drone on the beach.  Jamie and I parked at our usual spot and gave it a try.  Despite how warm it was, it was just a little too windy and the drone kept blowing away (luckily away from the water) – we decided we need a bigger drone!

Jamie getting ready to fly his drone from the ice pack near 18th street north
Jamie’s drone flying over the beach – we now have the camera working so as soon as we get a still day, we’re going to try again and get aerial photos
The beach came alive for the Family Day long weekend. Most people I’ve seen on the beach since I started early in January. Tons of skidoos, skiers and four-wheelers.

The days were so nice I got down to the beach twice some days this week. There are many more pictures in the Gallery.  You could actually get a sunburn from the reflection off the snow.  For the first time I saw cross-country skiers heading up and down the beach as well.  Lots of people were in town for the long weekend opening up summer homes and cottages.

Walking out on the ice back. Notice how the ice has been shifting with layers of ice piling up on top of one another.  Early in the week I felt the ice was safe enough.

By the end of the weekend, it had been so warm, and so many snowmobiles had criss-crossed beach, that the snowmobile trails were down to wet sand as you can see below.

The snowmobile trails worn down to the sand by the warm weather and constant traffic

Most days mid-week were warm and hazy.  The picture below taken from the upper part of the beach shows that despite the warm weather the ice is still hanging in at the shore.  Note all the mini ice-bergs floating out on the bay.

I’m not sure why there is so much floating ice. I suspect the warm weather means chunks of ice are breaking off and floating off shore. We had a south wind a few days bringing the warm temperatures
Looking west late afternoon Tuesday There is water on top of the sand and snow creating a bright glare

It’s pretty incredible the difference a few warm days makes.  By Saturday the 25th, despite heavy rain all day Friday and some thunderstorms the night before everything was dry (below).

At least it is easy to walk on the beach again! I definitely prefer this to the glare ice of a few weeks back.  With the snow all gone I was able to take a different route, walking back from Beach one through the parking lots in the provincial park below.

After the record warm temperatures the beach is once again try and easy to walk on.
I found this dirty ice interesting near the west end of the board walk. There is still ice on the ground mixed with snow.
Even though it is warm the wind off the water is cold so it was nice to be able to take a more sheltered route walking back out of the wind.