BARRIE — It’s not just your imagination of a white nightmare.
Barrie has already received about 210 centimetres of snow since November, or about 80 per cent of its average annual winter snowfall of 265 centimetres, says David Phillips, a climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
“It’s sort of like the snow torture test. If it isn’t snowing, it’s looking like snow and it’s about to happen,” he told BarrieToday. “It really changes people’s views of driving, shopping, going out ... do we put it off today when we can do it tomorrow?
“People become storm-stayed,” Phillips added. “You’re not going to go out into the traffic when it’s snowing.”
Barrie’s 210 centimetres of snow is also consistent with local weather tracker John Dunsmore’s numbers, figures he’s been keeping for almost 53 years at his property near the municipal border between Barrie and Oro-Medonte, just off Ridge Road, known as the Shanty Bay Climate Station.
“We have had a lot of snow and we have more snow on the ground than we usually get this time of year,” said Dunsmore, 86. “I think I have around 72 centimetres on the ground here. We’re snowed in here right now.
“It snows all day, but very light snow," he added.
With help from his wife, Rosemary, along with daughters Joan and Lori, Dunsmore has been recording temperature and precipitation twice a day, every day, since Jan. 10, 1973, as a volunteer with Environment (and now Climate Change) Canada.
His snowfall readings are 40.2 centimetres last November, 128.8 centimetres in December and 34.8 centimetres as of Monday night, Jan. 5, for a total of 203.8 centimetres of snow.
“Years ago, we used to get a lot, but we haven’t been getting it,” Dunsmore said. “It’s been melting, it’s been milder, but this year it hasn’t done that.
“It’s us (humans) that’s causing all this,” he said of climate change.
But Phillips says there’s another factor in this weather story.
“Why we’re seeing so much snow is … the frequency of it, the fact that we’ve seen so many days with snow,” he said. “We’ve had a few big dumps, but they haven’t been record-breaking, really.”
Phillips mentioned Dec. 29, 30 and 31, when more than 60 centimetres of snow fell on Barrie.
“Individual daily records have not really been set,” he said. “It’s been the frequency.”
Barrie is in for a different mix of precipitation today. ECCC was forecasting two centimetres of snow or freezing rain mixed with ice pellets beginning late this morning.
Periods of snow are to end after midnight, but then there’s a 40 per cent chance of two to four centimetres of flurries.