Read about the Air Quality Health Index here.

This snow event is very different from the one that moved through mid-week: it is larger, moving more slowly and the forecast models are all converging around at least 10 cm for Halifax. Most of the snow will fall later today and through tonight, but there will be accumulations through the day as well. Be safe if you are driving!

And let's hope this is the last snow event for 2008!

Winter ’07 / ’08 is one to remember for many Canadians and goes down as the coldest and snowiest in many years. With the past few winters being milder in general, this year definitely caught most people off guard. In a CTV.ca report Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips says 1994 was the last time Canada had a significantly cold winter and this year had a chance to rival that season and to date, this winter is the coldest in 12 years.
But, finally spring is here and hopefully better weather!
Maybe just not yet though, as David Phillips today says don't put away those snow shovels, he is forecasting six more weeks of winter weather due to the lingering effects of La Nina.
- So if global warming is occurring, why was the winter of 2007-2008 so cold and snowy? The following link may provide an answer to this question. Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground provides an excellent view on what has happened with the ’07 / ’08 winter weather and climate, it is an interesting read:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=916&tstamp=200803

Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Forest Service has a great site that explains lightning in just the right amount of detail and starts off with a brief overview of the surface charges.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association also has a really good web site on lightning in general. It includes lots of great advice on what to do in the event of lightning.

Here is a great place to start to learn more: temperate latitudes in general have the potential for these storm systems, but the US still hase the greatest frequencies.

There is a new report just out from Natural Resources Canada entitled "From Impacts to Adaptation:Canada in a Changing Climate 2007". It is really worth a look....

Read about them here. There is also a good summary of climate change in the Canadian contest.

If anyone is doing a climate change topic on what other nations are doing...here is one site that gives some context.

Take a look at a recent editorial in Nature, a well-respected and peer-reviewed academic journal: it's only half a page of text but has an important message.

Astute as ever, Rick Mercer picked up on the story and blogged about it. Remember this meeting that I had mentioned? I didn't go because I didn't want to fly and wanted to keep my carbon footprint down. Harper could have walked there.....