In vain do I search my memories of my Alberta yute for freezing rain. Maybe we had it, maybe we didn’t. I remember hoar frost. I remember cold. I remember packed-down snow so dry it squeaked when you walked on it. I don’t remember freezing rain.
Freezing rain occurs when frozen precipitation falls through a warm layer of air, causing the precipitation to melt and change from solid to liquid. However, because the surface where it lands is below freezing, the liquid precipitation freezes on contact, creating a dangerous icy layer. – GLISA, UMich
I don’t need to search my memory about freezing rain in Ottawa: we were under a freezing-rain warning this past week, said warning involving breathless advice to be ready to do without power for up to three days. Yeah, that wasn’t going to be feasible in my house. I mean, I need electricity every day, you know? Usually all day. Surely the weather gods would accommodate a genuine need.
My confidence was not misplaced. We got just a little bit of freezing rain, no more than we could handle. Not enough to interrupt the essential flow of electrons, just enough to coat bare branches with a thin layer of shiny ice. A few weeks ago I was in search of sticks-sans-snow in the desert, after being driven for 30 or 40 minutes on Phoenix freeways. This week I found sticks-mit-ice, after taking 3 or 4 steps out my front door.
The next day I found greenery-mit-ice just a few more steps along. Junipers and their ilk resolutely refuse to drop their greenery in the fall, so the freezing rain just went ahead and coated whatever it found, perhaps on the basis that their twiggy branches are close enough to being sticks.
Beautiful photographs, Isabel! Magical! The detail is wonderful to study! Amazing, talented artistry! Capturing such profound yet fleeting beauty in the simplest setting is inspiring.
Marilyn – Many thanks. And aw, shucks. 🙂 Fleeting is the right word – today, as you know, it’s under several inches of snow and rapidly melting altogether. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder how much we miss – we’re all tuned for different “noticings” I think.
Nice sticks!! (nicely portrayed that is, not nice sticks-mit-ice)
Yes we need electricity everyday, if only the LRT would figure it out with the freezing rain….
Jim R – IKR? I understand that it’s hideously expensive to bury electrical distribution lines, but admit that I was surprised to see our light-rail transit being built as a catenary system with an overhead wire. I assume price was the deciding factor (and safety, too, maybe – hence the “third rail” trope), but to paraphrase Field of Dreams: If you build an unreliable system, they won’t use it.
Beautiful!
In the Ice Storm of ’98 I stood under branches droopy with their ice coatings. It was windy, so like standing under a twinkling chandelier in an earthquake. Noisy. Trees should not tinkle. I went back inside.
Barbara – Fair enough. I think we can agree on this: trees should not tinkle. Or drop shards of ice into your head, either. A little bit of ice coating is a nice change: a lot is a real mess.
I remember a time in the mid-1970s when our village in southern Ontario didn’t have hydro for 6 days because freezing rain had taken power lines and transformers down.
The pictures you show are strikingly beautiful; in the freezing rain that took our power down we weren’t focussing on the beauty.
Tom
Tom – If the power hadn’t “held”, I wouldn’t have focused on the beauty either! As someone who used to live in Ottawa said, freezing rain is beautiful but nasty.
Sticks with still-scarlet berries are even better under ice. I am fascinated with the air bubbles in the cedar ice sheaths. (Nice tongue twister as I read those words to myself.) Is it only a year ago that we lost power for a week when part of the willow tree came down on our main power line to the house? That was a harsh way to welcome the transition to spring. This morning, my cranberry car was glazed in ice and frosted with snow, pretty in the way your berry twigs are. Tomorrow, rain is expected and a high of 15! If that doesn’t wash away the rest of the filthy drifts, I don’t know what will. We have had so much snow that the grass has been warmed and turning green beneath it. However, we are an April away from losing the hazards of early morning ice on the deck. Watch your step!
Laurna – It seems that the whole country (maybe most of the continent) is having highly variable weather. It’s not my favourite time of year – all the more reason to watch for good bits while I watch my step!
You’re right, I’ve never known freezing rain in Alberta. Which seems odd, surely we get similar temperatures and precipitation? Glad to see you’re home, you missed at least most of what’s been a miserable Ottawa winter. Hope it warms up for you soon !
Alison – Interesting, eh? We need a weather-per-offspring to help us out here. I just Googled “Does Alberta get freezing rain?” and it’s actually in today’s forecast according to Alberta Storm Watch: Scattered patches of it from Grande prairie to Calgary – but (I think) mostly north of Edmonton. As for Environment Canada, for Edmonton they say a risk of freezing rain overnight on Tuesday. This is what is known as the announcer’s curse!
Isabel – during my time in Medicine Hat AB, 1990 to 1993, we had at least one big freezing rain storm. I was no longer a yute and had learned to be careful, but I still slipped and ended up hard on the flat of my back on the sidewalk. I also hit the sidewalk with the back of my head.
When i stood up, I had back spasms, that lasted for the rest of the day and until about noon of the following day. First and only time I’ve experienced back spasms, but I definitely remember the cause.
John – I can see why you’d remember that. Nasty. I think north-central Alberta doesn’t often have the weather conditions for widespread and long-lasting freezing rain (which is the kind I mostly notice here), but it’s obvious from your memory that it absolutely does occur, likely in all parts of the province.