Have I mentioned how much I love this city. As a girl who for the most part grew up in small towns and the country the fact that I can love living in a city soo much still comes as a bit of a shock to me. But I do, so much so that I've decided I can never move ever again! Lol. (I say that now of course ... )
Anyways, there are many many reasons I love this fair city - the food, the people, the parks, proximity to mountains. Today though, the main reason is CHINOOKS. For those of you who have never heard of such a thing the following was "borrowed" from Wikipedia:
"Chinook winds, often called Chinook's, commonly refers to foehn winds[1] in the interior West of North America, where the Canadian Prairies and Great Plains meet various mountain ranges, although the original usage is in reference to wet, warm coastal winds in the Pacific Northwest.[2]"
"The Chinook is a foehn wind, a rain shadow wind which results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air which has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes."
"As moist winds from the Pacific (also called Chinooks) are forced to rise over the mountains, the moisture in the air is condensed and falls out as precipitation, while the air cools at the moist adiabatic rate of 5°C/1000 m (3.5°F/1000 ft). The dried air then descends on the leeward side of the mountains, warming at the dry adiabatic rate of 10°C/1000m (5.5°F/1000 ft).[5]
The turbulence of the high winds also can prevent the normal nocturnal temperature inversion from forming on the lee side of the slope, allowing night-time temperatures to remain elevated.[5]"
"Chinooks are most prevalent over southern Alberta in Canada, especially in a belt from Pincher Creek and Crowsnest Pass through Lethbridge, which get 30 to 35 Chinook days per year on average."
I really don't understand the half of it, so if you are currently sitting there with a look on your face saying WTF I understand! Point blank, here is what it means - WARM WEATHER & MELTING SNOW. For example, this past weekend was cold, damned cold! We're talking -30 + windchill, making it feel more like -38 (Celsius of course). Edmonton had it even worse, I heard on the news that the city of Edmonton was the second coldest place on earth Sunday. It was beaten only by a town in Siberia, where the temperature dropped to -48 C. In Edmonton it was -46, with the wind chill it felt like -59 C. Now if I lived in Edmonton I'd have to go kill myself, but I live in Calgary, it's okay. I can suffer through a few days of frigid temperatures, because come Wednesday .... CHINOOK! And our weather is forcasted to be above zero with temperatures as high as +8 (Celsius again) for the rest of the week. Mwhahahahhha... hahaha.....hahahah...ha.ha. Lol, sorry, don't mind me - busy cackling gleefully right now.
And that's even a little bit low on the temperature high you can expect during a Chinook. Again, according to Wikipedia, where I "borrowed" this information:
"In southern Alberta, most of the winter can be spent with little or no snow on the ground. In Calgary, there is snow about 59% of the time on Christmas, compared to 88% for Edmonton.[3]. In Canada, only the West Coast of British Columbia and southern Ontario have fewer white Christmases than southern Alberta."
"In Pincher Creek, the temperature rose by 41°C (from -19°C to 22°C) in one hour in 1962 [4] - trains have been known to be derailed by Chinook winds there."
"In February 1992, Claresholm, Alberta hit 24°C (75°F) - one of Canada's highest February temperatures."
Holy rusted metal, Batman! Did you read that? 41 degrees in one hour. From bundled up snow suit weather to t-shirts and sandals weather. We've had a few similar to that in Calgary, only it was over the course of 2-3 hours. Even in a 2-3 hour time slot that's still pretty impressive. You can literally feel the temperature changing if your outside. It's the greatest natural phenomenon ever in my opinion. It makes all the snow melt, and you warm up and winter somehow just doesn't seem quite as bad or as long. Plus if you are really into winter, skiing and such nonsense we are only an hour away from the mountains - where they don't experience the same thing and there will be snow on the slopes into April/May on a good year.
So, later this week while Edmonton is still experiencing the frosty weather conditions I will be walking my dog in the melting snow (and if they are getting a warm front too I don't want to hear it!). Chinooks. Yet one more reason why Calgary rocks & Edmonton sucks! :) Gotta go & hide now, before my angry Edmontonian relatives read today's posting
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