Biggest Snow Storm Since 1998
 

Just wondering are there any Toronto citizens here hehe, snowing 1 and half a day none stop already, and since 4pm the storm started. Now its half a meter more outside my porch now(% I just shoveled snow at around 5pm.) .... City bus are on 2 hours delay... and i still got exam tomorrow :(:(:(

University stated that they've never closed down because of snow..... :(:(:(

South US got tornados as well....

South China atked by biggest snow storm in 50 years.

What's the cause? Global warming!!!!! Or was it a concidence? :(:(

Global Warming is Non-existent

lol that sucks i think its a concidence

Im from Sauga..very close to T.dot
and man..the snow is coming down hard! shovelling it is such a hassle -_-

do u know when it'll stop?
I seriously want another snow day tmrw XD

I got rain today ^_^. That hasn't happen in like 2 weeks ^^

It wasn't one of those sparse rain shower, it was a 6 hour long storm ^^

I'm in lower mainland BC, Canada. I was stuck up at the university for a couple of hours today, because it was snowing pretty heavily and buses were cancelled. So, everyone rushed there to pick people up, which with the snow and ice, caused a few accidents. It was very chaotic. Yeah, that only happened because my uni's at the top of a mountain. Everywhere else was only partially snowing, or some drizzle. =P

Are you seriously saying that?

I'm from TO too. At least we only got snow here. I had to drive west to K-W for a job fair, and the round trip took like 6 hrs. It wasn't only snow over there - it was sleet and hail. =_=

On that note, going back out to shovel.

If he's not then I am. Sorry but nature doesn't work for you.
There's no hidden line in our contract preventing it from going wild. :p

Well...I'm not going to restate what's already been said, so I'll just refer you to this thread. Just what evidence do you have that it doesn't exist?

Not to sound cynical, but welcome to weather cycles.

Our planet's system of weather fluxuates. It's just the way it operates. Regardless of whether the planet's overall average temperature increase is a small blip on the radar or whether it is the beginning of a larger, long-term trend (and regardless whether it is natural or the fault of man), weather patterns will change over the long-term and short-term. Some times will be hotter and some will be colder, some weather harsher and some smoother. It's rare and unlikely that we can point at a weather anomaly such as one snow storm or one season's trend in an area and attribute it to such a wide cause, much as it is hard to say that a water drop exiting a river through a certain outlet is the fault of any one condition of the river it traveled down.

If the weather was ever completely predictable and steady, it was... well, probably never.

Yes, I am aware of the existence of weather cycles, as are all of the scientists who believe in the global warming phenomenon. We do know that the weather has never changed so drastically in so short a time. We also know that carbon dioxide has properties that allow it to block infrared radiation to some extent and that large quantities of this gas is emitted into the atmosphere during recent decades.

So, by Occam's Razor:
CO2 -> Global Warming

Weather was never predictable or steady, but on what scale are you talking here? Geological time? From a human POV, the weather is indeed relatively stable, due to our short time on Earth.

This thread has taken the expected turn and I would report it as a merger candidate but I'm not sure if the powers that be won't judge that as a misuse of the report button.

Isolated incidences prove nothing but Global Warming is real. There is nothing to say that hasn't already been said again and again in the Global Warming thread. But if you want to put your own media-spin-enhanced gut feeling bolstered up with vacuous platitudes about the nature of nature above the statements of pretty much everybody on this planet who has studied climate science for many, many years, then go ahead.

I see this thread has gone to scare tactics and kinder garden truth science quicker then I expected. :(

I'm personally only concern on pollution, because it destroys nature.
You can moan on the supposed super apocalyptic effect if you want.

ps. That thread you linked is a scaremonger trap if I ever saw one.

My point was to avoid global warming debate.

I was referring to the time period of a human lifetime. It's a "$#!^ happens" explanation: Whether or not global warming exists (and I'm not saying it's not) and whether or not man caused it (which I'm merely skeptical of), we're going to have shifting weather from season to season, with the "biggest snow storm in Toronto since 1998" being the example here. Because of this constant variation with so many influences we can't point to an isolated event and say "this is because of (insert global weather trend here)", especially when there was a similar event a decade ago. Perhaps one day our weather model will be good enough to make such far-reaching connections, but today it is not. In other words, there's little point in discussing global warming in relation to this event.

Simply saying that "we've released CO2, and CO2 can cause [the greenhouse effect]" is oversimplifying things and ignoring many other factors. Nonetheless, my purpose was to avoid global warming discussion here, which is really my preference, since like all other politics people love choosing sides. You'll find none of that with me: I'm skeptical of the findings of human activity being the primary cause, but believe we should be reducing our emissions anyway (perhaps it is the Boy Scout in me). That earns me ire from both sides, hence my preference to avoid the debate. Doubly so since there's a thread for that already.

Hold the phone--I'm agreeing with Cats?! Do I get to change my opinion? (Just kidding, Cats. :) )

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't really attributing the storm to global warming, just a little surprised that so many still do not believe that we are influencing the weather, towards an apocalyptic conclusion or not.

Northern California has also experienced it's biggest storm since the late 90's, could they be the same one? Another huge storm just passed by, not sure if it's enroute to Canada or not, it took the storm two weeks to blow over.

The storm was bad but not as bad as the one we had about a month or two ago. The restaurant where I work closed early last night as a result, like 8:30 instead of 11:00 though. It was interesting just trying to get home and having no idea where the sidewalk was. I bet it happens again in just a couple more weeks.

Ha ha, that was my post he linked to. I was really hoping you'd show us your scientific background and disprove some of my points made in that thread, Cats, but you never did. I won't discuss them here, though.

This storm isn't necessarily indicative of global warming. In engineering we learned that there are some theories behind design of systems. I specialized in civil/environmental engineering, and water management was a big issue. On the subject of how to deal with rain storms, we learned something rather interesting.

When one designs a system, most people think that it should be designed as strong as possible. But how much is too much? The sturdier the system (the greater its capacity, in the case of storm drains) the more it'll cost, and its maintenance may also be higher than a lower-level system. Instead, engineers created charts and graphs. There were concepts such as a 20-year storm, 50-year storm, and the 100-year storm. The concepts were derived from data gathered from the environment. The basic idea was that every 20 years there would be a storm of a certain magnitude, every 50 years there would be an even worse storm, and every 100 years there would be a gargantuan storm. It's not really practical to design for a 100-year storm as it'd happen so infrequently. And who knows - perhaps a newer, more capable system would come up before it came.

If these unusual storms occur more often, attribute it to global warming. Otherwise, congratulations - you may have just experienced your first 10- or even 20-year storm.

Snow!
 

Blah I'm in Seattle and we're going to the dogs, man. This place just shuts down for a few days when it snows. I'm from WV and its easier there, more snow plows and more experienced drivers.

Wow, it snows a foot in Vancouver, B.C., and everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It's pretty cold for Vancouver though.