We've been having crazy weather in Vancouver these past few months. In my 9 years in Canada, I've never experienced weather like this. Windstorm, snowstorm, negative temperatures. I do live in Canada and cold weather is expected, but not it's not usually this cold in Vancouver.
In December, we've had two snowstorms within a week of each other. The first one dropped like 4 inches of snow and the second one more than 6 inches. It may not be surprising to those who live anywhere else in Canada, but in Vancouver, that's unusual weather. We normally get less than 3 inches of snow a year if ever.
In December again we had a windstorm with winds of over 80km/h. This knocked out our power for almost 24 hours. I'm sure for people in the Philippines, this is nothing and yes, I was in the Philippines when Cory was the President and it was normal to have blackouts every day. But for a city with a power company who's power supply reliability is over 95%, even a short power outage is unusual.
Over
1000 trees in Stanley Park fell during the windstorm in December. This week, we had another windstorm with wind gust of up to 120km/h. Of course, more
trees fell and hit a van. A woman suffered a fractured skull, broken arms and broken legs in Stanley Park when the tree fell on her during the windstorm.
And yes, a tree fell on a main road near where we live and knocked out power again. Thankfully, power was restored within nine hours instead of 24 hours.
Two days ago, we had heavy snowfall again and we got about 4 inches of snow at least. Now we're getting negative temperatures. It's currently -2 in Vancouver without the windchill. We do get these temperatures from time to time, but the forecast is that the temperatures will be below zero until Monday, January 15, 2007 which is unusual. It will be a very cold winter this year.
These unusual weather is being debated a lot in the forums and blogs, some attribute it to global warming and others to La Nina. Still others say "It's winter! Deal with it!". I personally think we are affecting the weather with our pollution. I'm no tree hugger or do I believe everything I see (note: I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth). But from my own observations, the pollution we spew out everyday affects the environment for sure.
One of the things I observed is that in Manila, it seems to get warmer and warmer every year. Not only in the summer but also during the rainy seasons and in December. I used to remember when I was less than 10 years old where I had to wear a light jacket because it was cold in December. I remember feeling a cold breeze at night during the summer and seeing clear night sky full of stars.
Now, all I see is smog from the top of the building(12 storeys) where we live and I'm sweating in December. This was before I came to Canada and got used to cold weather. I think all the smog in Manila is making Manila a small version of global warming.
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