We were part of Ontario's weather highlights for 2008

The UW weather station got a mention in Environment Canada's regional weather highlights for 2008.

We are mentioned under the "Soaker Storms in Kitchener-Waterloo" story.

Canada's Top Ten Weather Stories for 2008 - Regional Weather Highlights 2008

Could be the wettest December ever!

Another record we are going for in these last days of 2008:

The highest ever December precipitation was 1949 with 139.7 mm.

As of 9:30 am on Monday, December 29 we have had 132.5 mm.

We are expected to get about 5 cm of snow on Tuesday night, as that usually translates into about 5 mm of precipitation we will probably be very close to the record.

Annual precipitation total

A few weeks back I said that it would be very hard for us to move up from third spot on the list of the highest annual precipitation totals in the area.

But then we got all this rain.

The current highest precipitation we have had in the area was 1186.4 mm in 1985 and the second highest was 1174.9 mm in 1940.

As of 4:00 pm on Saturday, December 27 we have had 1152.2 mm in 2008.

Fall 2008 Summary

The snowiest fall since 1951 (3rd snowiest ever) with below average temperatures

With 96 cm of snow, the fall of 2008 ranks as the third snowiest fall since records in the area began back in 1915 (the two snowiest were 1950 with 114.5 cm and 1951 with 105.5 cm). However what we got as snow we didn't get as rain, so the total precipitation of 250.4 mm puts it just barely above the average range.

Looking at the temperature, there were a couple of warmer than average periods during late September and early October. But after reaching 20 °C in early November the temperature was consistently lower than average for the rest of the season. Even though overall it was only 0.7 °C colder than the average, it still ranks as the coldest fall in the 10 year history of the UW weather station.

Summary for Fall 2008:

Maximum Temperature 26.2 °C

Minimum Temperature -18.8 °C

Average Daily High Temperature 7.9 °C (Long term average 8.5 °C)

Average Daily Low Temperature -1.1 °C (Long term average -0.3 °C)

Total Precipitation 250.4 mm (Long term average 222.5 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1971-2000 data for the Waterloo Wellington Airport)

Follow this link to see the graph showing the temperature and precipitation:

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Snow-maggeddon - December 19th version

Unofficial "snow-maggeddon" totals for December 19th.

7:00 am - 0.0 cm
8:00 am - 0.5 cm
9:00 am - 2.0 cm
10:00 am - 5.5 cm
11:00 am - 10.0 cm
12:00 pm - 11.5 cm
1:00 pm - 13.0 cm
2:00 pm - 15.0 cm
3:00 pm - 16.5 cm
4:00 pm - 18.0 cm
5:00 pm - 18.5 cm

This will be final update as the snow stopped around 5 pm.


Here is graph showing the intensity of the storm.


As you can see from the graph the storm had a very consistent intensity for most of the day, with a bit of break around 1 pm.


Listen to my chat about today's storm with Carlos and Gayle from DaveFM.

Download the chat here.