Blizzard of January 2014

According to the internet a blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds of at least 56 km/h and lasting for three hours or more.  A severe blizzard has winds over 72 km/h with near zero visibility and temperatures of -12C or lower. 

On January 7th and 8th in Iqaluit there was a blizzard that blew the above definition away. (pun intended)

 It had sustained winds of 115km/h with gusts up to 141km/h and it went on for almost 24 hours.  

Jacquie and I were amazed at how much our apartment moved.  We live in a side by side one story 5 plex.  Our building was rocking and rolling much like being on a cruise ship.  It was moving so much that we were getting motion sickness.  

The other factor that we noticed was the loudness of the wind.  It roared like standing next to a freight train.  

One interesting event during what seemed like the peak of the storm, was taking the dog out to do her duty.  I got dressed up with snow pants, sweater, Canada Goose Parka, toque, balaclava, goggles, Baffin Boats and rabbit skinned mitts.  There wasn't any skin exposed anywhere.  Jacquie held the door and out we went.  I must admit, I had this vision of Holly flopping in the wind, like a lame kite, at the end of the lead.  The wind was coming from the east and there was some shelter from the wind near the building. She was very good and stayed close to the building.  Holly was quick and we got back inside quickly.  The experience however made us realize that we were not going to take Holly back out in that storm, even if it meant we needed to do a little floor clean up.

Although we weren't really concerned during the ordeal, it was a little disconcerting when the power went out.  It was off for about 8 hours although came on for 15 minutes or so 3 or 4 times during the 8 hours.  The temperature got down to about 14C in the apartment.  (the cuddling was fun)  One thing we realized is that we didn't have a match in the house for the 50 or so candles that we had on hand for just such an emergency.  

Considering how strong the wind was, there was relatively limited damage done by the storm.  The French School had its roof peeled back, a number of garbage bins were blown over including ours, number of signs were down, some homes had roof damage, a piece of plywood blew through a living room window, a few other windows were broken and a lot of loose cardboard and paper was blown around.  

The other interesting factor about this storm is there wasn't that much snow that fell, maybe a total of 5 cm, although there were some very large drifts in some places.  

Below is a video that was taken during the storm that depicts the strong wind and zero visibility.  All in all an event that Jacquie and I will remember for a very long time.