When it Rains, it Pours...

Actually, the correct saying should be that when it blows, it blows...because we had a doozy of a week last week with blizzards hitting us every other day. Our week was a little disruptive with half of Monday, Wednesday AND Friday off due to weather. (I would be lying if I didn't say that the schoolkid in me came out and loved our snow days.) We have all been complaining that there has been hardly any snow this year because it's been bitterly cold since October; -50 or below has been normal for months now...and I have to tell you, it's getting might tiring. This time last year, snow drifts were well above 10 feet high - this year, there are barely any drifts in town. You know you're living in the north when it's actually too cold to snow!

We did have a warm day or two last week (warm being -18 or so) and it snowed a bit. That seemed to have been enough for one of the whitest blizzards I've ever seen, a couple of days later. When we first came to Nunavut, we were told that we could be subject to blizzards so white that you couldn't see out the window, let alone across the street. Sometimes they could be so bad you couldn't see your hand in front of your face if you were to hold out your arm. We hadn't really experienced that, so we were somewhat skeptical...

Well, when you have a tiny bit of fresh, soft snow and winds of 90+ km/h, you'd be surprised at what you can see. Here are a couple of pictures...and keep in mind that it's not because I have a bad camera, it really is that white from the snow!


This is looking across the street from the 2nd floor of my office building.  I can see why they say you should use telephone poles as your markers when you are walking/driving, because you can't really see much else.

This is from the other side of the building, about 5 minutes later. You may as well have taped a blank piece of white paper to the glass.

The funny part is that this still wasn't quite considered bad enough for our office to close and for us to go home. We had to wait until it got a little worse before we could venture out and attempt to drive in it. ;)

Well, at least now we can cross "complete whiteout" off the bucket list!

-L