Lucy Bergemann WeatherNation Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:15 UTC
Heavy snow has been falling since Tuesday night in the Great Lakes - up over a foot for parts of the U.P.!
Snow continues into Thursday with the heaviest snow will be in the UP of Michigan where lake enhancement could help pile up close to a foot near Marquette where blizzard warnings were in effect at one point.
A few winter weather alerts linger through Thursday morning for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
A spring storm bringing heavy, wet snow swept through Quebec overnight, knocking out the lights for nearly 300,000 Hydro-Québec customers and shuttering schools in multiple areas.
All schools under the English Montreal School Board, the Lester B. Pearson School Board and the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board are closed due to a mixture of snow and power outages.
Around a dozen schools with Montreal's French school service centre, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) are also closed, as well as some under the Riverside School Board in Longueuil, due to power outages.
As of Thursday morning, Hydro-Québec was logging 971 outages, affecting 281,116 customers across the province.
The most affected regions include Montreal, with more than 73,000 customers affected, followed by the Laurentians and the Montérégie, with more than 86,000 and and 41,000 customers in the dark, respectively.
Tens of thousands of people in the Outaouais, Laval and Lanaudière are also without power.
A solo skier was found dead on B.C.'s Cathedral Mountain west of Lake Louise after an avalanche over the weekend, according to Avalanche Canada. The skier appeared to have veered off the peak's shoulder on March 29, landing on Cathedral Glades, a slope at approximately 6,500 feet. The avalanche was a D2.5 size slide and partially buried the skier.
The victim was located from the air on April 1 due to a visible ski. Rescuers found a transceiver in the skier's backpack, switched off, Calgary CTV News reports. The incident date was determined from a professional observation on March 30, estimating the avalanche to be 12 hours old.
Avalanche risk is currently ranked as "considerable" in alpine regions and "moderate" at treeline in the areas surrounding Cathedral Mountain. Additional snowfall is forecasted to impact the region this week which may increase avalanche risk in these areas.
A fatal helicopter accident was reported on Tuesday, April 2, at Petit Combin, near Verbier, Switzerland. Three people lost their lives in the accident while three further people were injured.
According to the police report, a type B3 helicopter crashed at the Petit Combin, a popular backcountry and heliskiing location near the famous Verbier Ski Resort, around 9:25 a.m. The helicopter was taking four guests and a guide for a heliskiing trip and was manned by one pilot. While the police report stated that 'unspecified reasons' caused the helicopter to slide off the peak of the Petit Combin at 3,668 meters (12,034 feet), eyewitnesses reported to British newspapers that an avalanche sent the helicopter down the north wall of the Petit Combin. The slope from Petit Combin runs at an angle of between 40-45°.
The avalanche broke below a lift on the Riffelberg.
Three people have been killed and another person injured in an avalanche at Riffelberg, near the Swiss Alpine ski resort of Zermatt.
Footage on social media showed a wall of snow crossing an off-piste sector of the Riffelberg sector of Zermatt, one of the most luxurious ski resorts in the Alps.
Authorities launched a major rescue operation despite bad weather but it was later suspended.
Heavy snowfall and very strong winds had prompted authorities to warn of a major avalanche risk in the southern Swiss Alps.
The risk was considered especially high in the Grisons and Valais cantons, both popular ski destinations.
A snowboarder was killed Saturday in an avalanche at the summit of Mount St. Helens, the Northwest Avalanche Center said in a preliminary report.
Standing near the mountain peak, the snowboarder triggered the avalanche on a cornice — an overhang of snow that can form on steep alpine slopes — and fell to his death.
"Our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and community," the avalanche center wrote in a post on its website.
Large cornices are more likely to fail during warmer weather, the agency said. According to the website, moderate avalanche danger was forecast this weekend in mountains throughout Washington.
The avalanche center will work with the Skamania County Sheriff's Office and search and rescue to compile a full report.
The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.
The climate events of 2022-24 have been were truly extraordinary. From an unlikely undersea volcanic eruption to the warmest year on record to the collapse of the polar vortex after three sudden stratospheric warming events. This rare convergence presents a unique learning opportunity for climatologists and climate aficionados alike, offering insights into a climate event that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years.
1. January 2022, the unlikely volcano
Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. The conditions for such an event are rare: the volcano must be deep enough to propel enough water with the plume, but not too deep to prevent it from reaching the stratosphere. Most undersea volcanoes do not produce plumes at all, which makes Hunga Tonga's eruption all the more remarkable.
The Hunga Tonga volcano occupied a unique "sweet spot" at a depth of 150 meters the day before the eruption. In addition, the eruption itself must be exceptionally powerful for water vapor to rise into the stratosphere. The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga was the most powerful in 30 years, since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.
Active undersea volcanoes at the appropriate depth are rare, and the likelihood of one erupting with such intensity is relatively low. We may be looking at an event that occurs once every few centuries, or maybe even once every millennium. Undoubtedly, it was an exceptionally rare event.
While the most powerful eruptions, such as Tambora in 1815, can indeed strongly influence hemispheric weather for a few years, our observations of eruptions such as Agung (1963), El Chichón (1982), and Pinatubo (1991) suggest that their effects dissipate within 3-4 years.
Vars has received 60cm (2 feet) of snowfall in 24 hours.
The avalanche danger has jumped from level 2 ('moderate') to a 'high' level 4 on the scale to 5 at ski areas across the region after several reported over two-feet (60 cm) of snowfall in about 24 hours on Tuesday-Wednesday this week.
Isola 2000, Serre Chevalier and Risoul-Vars in the southern French Alps were among the areas posting 60cm (24") accumulations on their higher slopes, with Les 2 Alpes also noting that the avalanche danger there had jumped to level 4.
Comment: Related: Temperature extremes: From 30ºC to snow fall in Portugal