Well winter is officially long over in Western Canada ! Here in Canmore AB , locals have experienced temperatures in excess of 10 degrees for the past 2-3 weeks!? This is crazy (depressing)!! This so called winter paradise is enjoying spring like conditions 2 months early. At the XC skiing nationals in Prince George (north central BC) they had to truck in snow from un-plowed parking lots to put on the trails. Even with all this work they still had to cancel the last races - I guess snow subjected to sun and high temps for long periods doesn't hold together too well. The 30 km Rocky Mountain Ski Marathon (of which I was to partake) was also cancelled, a week in advance due to dirt like conditions on the trails. Why is all this occurring??

Global warming of course! Actually seems to be worse out west where they have yet to implement smoking bans in bars and public places. All this excess smoke and particulate matter from these establishments acts to trap outgoing long wave radiation which causes positive temperature anomalies. More critically it is also causing my clothes (and presumably lungs) to stink. No seriously, my current theory is that a weak El Nino (similar to that of 1998 – the warmest year on record for NA) in the pacific is responsible. How, I don't know, that would have involved paying more attention during climatology lectures. I hypothesize that the increased sea surface temp is forcing the jet stream further north in western Canada , producing a blocking high pressure system that prevents cold arctic air from moving south. Luckily (if this is even occurring) the El Nino is not strong enough to effect winter conditions in Ontario - which I'm really looking forward to getting back to, I hate missing all the snow! Luckily, even in these crazy times, in the mountains, you don't have to look to hard to find snow...