Wild Weather

We are having a horrible storm this morning. Every road in the Grey and Bruce Counties are officially closed. This means if you are travelling you have no insurance and you have no police out on the roads looking for accidents. Usually the school systems says that schools are open, but buses are not running. The schools are closed – even in Owen Sound.

Winds are gusting to 70+ km and the temperatures have quickly fallen from +6 to -10. This causes ‘flash freezing’ – a new term that I had not heard before.

In Regina, Doug has been facing -30 temperatures all week, with higher wind chills. It’s -36 this morning.

Last year, in the third week of January, I was caught in a horrible storm in Saskatoon. I was taking a “January” (J) term course (3 weeks, half days = 1 course credit) at the Seminary. The University closed the campus down at 1:00. Doug was in Saskatoon working that day. I got a ride with a student & was to meet Doug at the entrance to the campus. It took us 2 hours to get 150 meters because every parking lot on the campus was emptying at the same time, and LTS is on the far perimeter of the campus, plus the police had closed all the exits off campus except for two.

Doug called my cell that he had finally made it across the city & was at the University where we said we’d meet. He said he’d drive around on the perimeter road & if I walked we should “intersect” at point X. I got out of the car, of course my fellow student didn’t want me to do that for fear that I’d be hit by a car re: visibility.

Within five minutes Doug & I found each other. I was heartsick to find him. The compulsion to go home (& for me in this case it was to be with Doug) is a powerful force. It can overide good judgment and reasoning. I could have stayed at the seminary because it had dormitory rooms & a cafeteria (the cook never went home.) But I wanted to get home.

That day really scared me. It has deeply affected my desire to drive in the winter and I find I now have to push myself to go out in “iffy” weather. I don’t “know” Ontario weather patterns and the “lake effect” is a new phenomenon for me to discern. Because I know that I’m now tentative around winter weather, I worry that I’ll push myself to travel just to prove I can overcome my fears. This can lead to poor decisions. I have stayed home several times due to bad weather. I’ve also travelled when I thought I shouldn’t only to discover the roads were fine. It just takes time to learn. I’m glad that the weather made the decisions easy today.