Ice breaks, finally

[polarbear]

Every year for the last 10 years it takes a bit longer till the ice finally breaks.
When it does it is spectacular.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU4JE0ruiOA&feature=youtu.be"]Ice breakup Manitoba May 2nd 2013 - YouTube[/ame]
This is just the Assiniboine River at Portage before it joins the Red River at "The Forks" in Winnipeg.
In Portage we control how much water we divert through our floodway channels directly into Lake Manitoba. From there it goes into the Nelson River and out into the Hudson Bay. My in-laws live in Churchill MB and they told me, that the international enviro-Paparazzi have as usual booked out every flee-bag hotel room at triple rates to film "drowning" polar bears, because the Nelson River Hydro System will soon open their spillway gates in order to keep the water level at Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba within bounds.

Lockport was completed in 1910 and the rest of the system in 1960 and nobody was worried about "drowning" polar bears in Churchill.
That only started after Al Gore`s brilliant Global Warming insights.
It`s a big business in Churchill and every year the Spillway gates open they rip off a bunch of enviro-dummies for all it`s worth.

Anyway, it`s awesome what a difference 1 day can make.
I was watching how the ice chunks made kindling out of trees...
In the Summer we find that stuff at the lake shore and use it for fish fries and Wienie roasts.

Thought for a while that spring arrived on Sunday when the Buffalo were basking in the sun @ ~ +1 C, but it did not last.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpe5joln-A&list=UUvj7dbOY14kt_MFIR1Y1iwA&index=2"]Manitoba Spring 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

On Monday it went down to -12 C again and 25 cm more snow just 50 klicks north of where I live.
The windmill farm on top of the plateau is a lot noisier than what the video audio registered. It`s a deserted area, but I can understand why people who live near these wind turbines get so pissed off.
We don`t even need these, because we got way more hydro just from the Nelson River system than we could possibly use and export with the existing HV lines that run south across the Canada\US border.
But hey, why not collect Carbon credit browny points from the international greenies ?
I just missed one of these 4 mile long oil tanker trains which head south into the US right after Winnipeg in that video...but caught the tail end of another one of Warren Buffet`s money trains that keep rolling from Canada to Texas as long as team Obama blocks the Keystone pipeline(..while the greenies cheer, but only they know why)...these trains just keep on rolling

 

[skookerasbil]

cool stuff Polar...........

Now back to beating up on the k00ks.

 

[Mr. H.]

Back in college, it took mere minutes.

 

[polarbear]

cool stuff Polar...........

Now back to beating up on the k00ks.

Thanks. A couple of days ago I was reading your post where you said how Canadians still freeze their ass off. Did you notice "Amo" (Amadeus) ?
He thinks +1 C is too hot to wear a shirt.
I also prefer it on the cooler side because blood sucking parasites can`t breed when it does not warm up...including the Carbon tax $ucker$.
B.t.w. How are your parents now?
Did they recover Okay after Sandy ?
Many of us here in Canada donated stuff and money only to see later in the news that the people who needed it never got it.
As far as winning is concerned...have a heart and let them think they win even though you double lapped them

 

[polarbear]

That`s what Minnesotans call them depending where the stuff came from.
Apparently this one was a Manitoba Mauler:
Historic Snowstorm Hits Plains to Upper Midwest
Historic Snowstorm Hits Plains to Upper Midwest

The list of locations that have received record May snowfall from a storm that brought up to 2 feet of over the central Rockies continues to grow over portions of the Plains and Upper Midwest.
The storm will continue to drop accumulating snow into Friday morning and reaching even more unlikely locations over the Plains, Midwest and the South before it is all said and done.
Omaha, Neb., Mason City, Iowa, and Rochester, Minn., are but only several cities that have been clobbered by their biggest May snowfall on record. In many cases in the major cities in the Plains, those records date back to the 1800s.


In some cases the snow fell on locations that were in the 80s only a couple of days earlier, including Denver and Amarillo, Texas. Cold air was driving southward in the wake of the storm and threatens to bring yet another freeze to part of the southern winter wheat belt.

May Plains Snowstorms: A Historical Perspective
There have been some snowstorms in May in the region, but they are rare. 1907 sticks out as a benchmark year for a number of locations. However, multiple years during the mid-1940s also brought snow events to the region for several years in a row.




According to National Weather Service records for May, until this storm in 2013, there has never been more than 2.0 inches of snow in Omaha, Neb. On May 9, 1945, 2.0 inches of snow fell. There have been two snowfalls on May 3 over the years in Omaha. One was 1.3 inches in 1907 and another was 1.0 inch in 1967.
The heaviest May snowfall on record for Des Moines, Iowa, was during 1907, when 1.2 inches fell on the third day of the month. There has been measurable (0.1 of an inch or more) snow as late at May 15, which was set the same year.
About 100 miles north of Des Moines, along I-35, in Mason City, Iowa, there has been 4 inches of snow as late as May 28 in the year 1947. That storm continued into the next day and brought a grand total of 4.5 inches.
Meanwhile, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area has received measurable snow as late as May 15, during 1907. On May 11, 1946, a storm brought 2.8 inches of snow. On May 1, 1935, 3.0 inches of snow fell on the area.
In Kansas City, Mo., the 1907 storm brought 1.7 inches of snow on May 3.
Records for the area date back into the late 1800s.
In Eau Claire, Wis., records only date back to 1949. The only measurable snowfall during May since then was 0.7 of an inch on the ninth day of the month in 1960.

 

[mamooth]

Ah, lovely, lovely cold.

Hey, I'll be running a half-marathon Saturday morning. Race forecast is 57F, brisk wind, a little rain. That's perfect. I suffer in the heat, being I'm more like a linebacker than a skinny cross country runner. A nice cool day, and I can do those 13 miles without excessive pain.