You know it. Schools will be closing.
I wonder how many snow removal guys are out sick these days.
Update: STM tweeted around 10:30 that it was not sending buses up Beaver Hall Hill, so you know, storm.
Updates from January, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The Globe and Mail has an interesting piece on Dr William Cone, the co‑founder of the Montreal Neuro who spent most of his professional life in the shadow of the better known Wilder Penfield. Thanks to the regular reader who sent this link to me.
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Kate
The trial of Tony Accurso and three others was halted last year based on the Jordan ruling, because it had taken too long to come to court – at least partly because the defense wanted to examine the 802 boxes of evidence collected by police. But now La Presse has seen this evidence, and Vincent Larouche writes that police say the money involved did not come from legitimate activities and was used for bribes paid between 2005 and 2008 to tax officials. The money had ping‑ponged among tax havens like Panama and Singapore before landing in Swiss bank accounts, where the authorities flagged the situation as unusual.
The line about pornography in the lede is something of a misdirection. It isn’t a story about pornography.
Larouche reminds us that, to date, Accurso and his associates are officially innocent of all crime.
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Kate
The director Jean-Claude Lord has died. He was the director of a long list of movies and TV series.
Update: The STM reminds us that Lord directed this immortal commercial for the metro.
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Kate
La Presse’s Simon-Olivier Lorange tells the epic tale of the Canadiens’ worst season – 1939‑1940. Not all the old days were glory days.
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Kate
Following a weekend of Arctic temperatures, we’ve got a winter storm coming that may turn the return to school into a snow day.
Update, and addressing some of the disagreements below, looks like this will really be a storm.
Andrew Kemp
Snow days don’t exist anymore. We got an email yesterday that our daughter’s classes will be online on Monday. ☹️
dhomas
@Andrew Kemp: what school is that, if you don’t mind me asking? Online teaching requires preparation. Lesson plans for in-class teaching cannot necessarily be reused for online learning so teachers cannot necessarily pivot to online teaching at the drop of a hat. It sounds like your daughter’s school is preparing in advance, which is good. But that’s not the case for all schools.
walkerp
Using the “storm” as an excuse to close the school for covid reasons I am okay with, but if they are actually closing because we are getting a decent snowfall, I am not.
Snow accumulating is not a storm.
Max
Environment Canada begs to differ, walkerp.
Blork
Not just accumulation of snow; it’s going to be very windy and blizzardy AF.
walkerp
They are part of the problem.
Please tell me you actually believe this will be anything more than a pain in the ass for car owners and maybe a driving hazard.dhomas
Well, people need to bring their kids to school, and for some, that is often done by car. So, driving hazards might be a good reason to close schools. Also, school bus drivers are not immune to snow storms, or “snow accumulations” as you call them. This in addition to bus driver shortages. Even if people didn’t want to take their cars, they’re being told they’ll likely need to. Here is a message from my kids’ school:
“due to the current epidemiological situation and the shortage of bus drivers, transportation services might get cancelled at the last minute. If this affects your child(ren)’s bus, we will notify you as soon as possible by email. If your child(ren)’s bus is cancelled, you must kindly make arrangements to drop them off and/or pick them up from the school.”walkerp
When did we close schools for 15 cm in the past?
The school boards make the call in the morning, which is a good policy. If this turns out to be a devastating whiteout, with blinding conditions, mailboxes ripped out of the sidewalk due to gale force winds, then yes let’s play it safe. But if we get 15 cm accumulation with a bit of wind, come on.walkerp
dhomas, to your point about online learning, yes if they do call a snow day please let it indeed be a snow day. Give the teachers and staff another day to prepare and let the kids go play in the snow.
Ian
AT CEGEP a lot of us have been preparing both online and in-person lesson plans for the coming term all along, as we have no idea if and when we will be in person or online. While I’m not happy to be back to teaching online, I am relieved not to to have to drive to Ste Anne in a snowstorm that is being predicted as 30-46cm depending on which weather service you go with.
I like Dark Sky and no, that is not my personal address but it’s not far 😉dhomas
And I just got another email from my kids’ school:
“All schools and adult centres and the head office of the English Montreal School Board will be closed tomorrow (Monday) because of the weather. Follow us on Twitter (@Englishmtl) and on our website for more details.”A little premature if you ask me… not even a centimeter on the ground yet, and they preemptively closed? The EMSB were usually the last holdouts when it came to snow days.
Tim S.
@walkerp My father, a high school teacher who was not crazy about his job, made a very careful study of the conditions needed for a snow day. It wasn’t the amount, but the timing – you need heavy snow and most importantly wind at about 5 AM, when the school bus companies made the call about whether they could get out on time. How much snow falls over the course of the day, or before 5AM, is irrelevant. And if you check out the hourly forecast, 5AM does look pretty blizzardy.
Meezly
CSSDM has also followed suit. But.. it’s a real snow day. No classes or distance learning at all.
@Tim S. that is interesting. So it’s more about whether school buses can follow their schedules, or is safety also part of it?
walkerp
That is interesting, Tim S. Good to know.
So much for the morning call. Personally, I’m hoping for a huge dump, but since they already closed the schools that will probably jinx it.Joey
@Andrew you’re in the minority. Seems all the public schools are taking a day off – no virtual classes or anything.
In addition to the school bus/rush hour issue is the challenge of ensuring that teachers and staff can make it in. My impression is that most drive to school and the likelihood of absence/lateness due to weather weighs on the school boards. Can’t have a bunch of kids show up with no adults in the building.
Kevin
15 cm has been the cutoff point since I was a little kid.
With that much coming down throughout the day nothing works.Blork
15cm is the minimum expected tomorrow. Forecast says 15-25 cm. And wind will be gusting to 70 all morning.
walkerp
We’ll be lucky if it cracks 15.
dhomas 07:10 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
There is maybe 1-2cm on the ground as of now outside my house. Where is this storm? I mean, I guess it’s coming later, but I think the school closures were premature.
walkerp 08:24 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
Aside from Big Weather hyperbole, I suspect they took advantage of it to extend kids out of school and reducing covid transmission for one more day.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for some real accumulation today nonetheless.
dhomas 08:55 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
It’s starting to come down now. Though my kids would have been in school at 7h45 and thus avoided any bad weather this morning, it might have been difficult to pick them up this afternoon. Visibility is pretty bad with the wind.
qatzelok 10:24 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
If anyone ever writes a History of Cancel Culture, snow-blamed *school closures* should be considered one of the Founding Fathers of the movement.
Kate 10:41 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
There’s something to be said for it, qatzelok. It was a 2‑km walk to my high school, back when they were much more sparing with snow days. I remember a day like this where, no snow day announced, my parents pushed me out the door and I slogged my way over, only to find that hardly anyone had shown up, including teachers, so by noon they announced a closure and I had to slog my way home again.
Even then I think a lot of the teachers and support staff probably lived off the island, but that tendency is more obvious now. Snow days aren’t for the kids, they’re for the people who work at the school.
Joey 11:09 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
Pretty good for the kids, though. Virtual classes on Friday ended early because a staff meeting was called for 2pm. Today’s a snow day and kind of ideal conditions for kids to play outside. And Friday is a ped day. The risk/reward ratio for re-opening schools this week is shrinking by the minute.
Meezly 11:39 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
Haven’t read this yet, but Caandian Geographic devoted an article to how Montreal deals with snow removal: https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/defeating-winter?fbclid=IwAR3zQjUimPQ5Rd26ZX7nBitiez8ymieBkG7bmjH4k43U1XbJJY-s6MLYoKo
Tim S. 12:37 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
“kind of ideal conditions for kids to play outside.” My daughter laughed out loud when I said that and we looked out the window. Maybe later…..
walkerp 13:30 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
What’s not ideal about it? Not too cold, good soft, fresh snow.
I’m pleased with the accumulation so far, but this is not a “storm”, it’s a snowfall. When it rains for a few hours, we don’t call it a rain storm.
Tim S. 13:37 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
I don’t know what it’s like where you guys are, but here in NDG the wind is blowing the snow pretty horizontal. Even the squirrels are curled up somewhere. Maybe it’s some local wind-tunnel effect or something, but it’s clearly a storm.
Mark Côté 13:47 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
The snow started around 2 am and will keep going until at least mid-evening. I’d call 18+ hours of snowfall more than “a few”.
Joey 13:47 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
The wind around our hood ranges from minimal to mildly annoying. Perhaps not ideal for play but pretty close (of course you can’t do anything really fun with this powdery snow, of course).
walkerp 14:55 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
The snow started at 7 AM. I was up at 5 and there was no new snow.
Maybe it will get a bit more playable when it’s warmer. Looks beautiful!
Kevin 17:31 on 2022-01-17 Permalink
I am always amused by people who decide to drive down my back alley, because it’s not plowed, has trees growing in the middle of the path, and at its narrowest is about 2.5 metres across.
Today a delivery van decided to make the attempt.
Kate 12:31 on 2022-01-18 Permalink
In my alley, the families build a hill at one end so the kids can sled without going too far from their own back yards. Nobody can get through that alley till it all melts away in late March.