Blizzard Worthy of a Blog Post

You can see the trees growing in the direction of the prevailing winds, but today they bent a bit more!

This is our third aurora season at CNSC, and each year we have experienced a couple of blizzards.They have been different from our blizzards at home in that there is often very little snowfall- perhaps as little as only a few centimeters. I honestly don't know how it is even possible to measure the snowfall since all the snow seems to be in constant horizontal motion. Back in Massachusetts, a blizzard usually means a substantial amount of snow to shovel. A typical blizzard would leave 1-2 feet of snow. Our blizzard in January left 3 feet of snow in some areas.

This was the view shortly after sunrise. The top of the halo was not that visible, but the sundogs were spectacularly colorful! Some guests reported seeing rainbows.

This blizzard has been unique to my experience of a blizzard in Churchill. First of all, the wind has been blowing incessantly for the past 60+ hours. The sound is much like the wind in a hurricane. We are fortunate to be safe and warm, so I have been just taking in the whole experience in comfort. The other unique thing about this blizzard is that the sun is shining brightly today. There was a beautiful sun halo with very colorful sundogs this morning. I know that this is considered a ground blizzard, but my brain didn't really process that idea until I could see the sun rising this morning as the winds continued to rage and snow continued to blow into large drifts.

This is one of my favorite views on any given day.

Today I stepped outside of the building (just a tiny bit outside) and found myself almost toppled over by the force of the wind. For the first shot, I actually needed to brace myself with one hand and widen my stance in order to stay upright to snap the photo using my other hand. Now, the wind has swept all snow from some of the open area, and of course there is ice everywhere. I have to say that the reflection of the sun off the ice was so beautiful that I ventured out one more time to take these photos. There was an extra gust of wind in the last photo.

I made a short video which I hope to insert. I took this in the lobby of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. The video recorded a very realistic copy of the roaring wind and you can see the horizontally blowing snow.

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Tonight we are hoping to see some aurora from the powerful CME (coronal mass ejection) which arrived in the middle of the night. I will have to enjoy that aurora through photos taken in other locations. Perhaps tonight we will see one, but it will have to be indoor viewing if this wind continues. How lucky we are to have the dome at CNSC to observe the heavens in comfort!

Churchill Northern Studies Centre- Check out the dome!