It was some screwed up day today! The forecast called for 10 – 15 cm of snow followed by freezing rain late this evening. Since the freezing rain wasn’t due until after 8 p.m. I wasn’t particularly concerned over the safety of my commute home. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Right!
I did make it home safe, but it was a long trip. It typically takes about a half-hour, depending on traffic. Outside rush-hour in the summer, it’s a simple matter to make it in 20 minutes. I thought I might catch a break because so many people were leaving early. The traffic wasn’t very heavy, but it was indeed show.
My 25 km trip took ten minutes shy of two hours. According to the ScanGauge, my average speed was 15 km/h. I tell you, getting home at 7 p.m. is no fun. I asked both Don and Lori how long they took to get home and their commutes were not much longer than normal. Look at them, sticking it to me! They live in a different area of town, and left work at least an hour before me, however.
Check out the local weather radar for 6:40 p.m. this evening:
I had planned to go to Kendra’s for some Weeds watching, but we cancelled the plan late in the afternoon. It’s a good thing too because I only arrived home from work when I had planned to have come home, eaten dinner, and then gone to her place.
Then I was disappointed to see that I didn’t have any wine in the house. I was feeling like a nice glass or two so I planned to get out to the grocery store before it closed. Although the freezing rain was a few hours late, it had started when I left the building. As soon as I saw what was happening, I went back inside. Freezing rain is something I won’t fool around with!
So we’ll see what happens tomorrow morning. Will the ice have melted? Will the ploughs have done their work to clear the streets? And just to make things interesting, the OC Transpo transit workers go on strike at one minute past midnight and I’ve read reports estimating that there will be 20% more cars on the road tomorrow.
When it rains, it pours… and freezes.
Weather radar image courtesy of Environment Canada.
Shawn
For those who can’t understand Rick, OC Transpo is not going on “trick”. They are going on strike. No public transit for all of Ottawa. Yet another power hungry union flexing it muscle at the expense of the populous.
Rick
Thanks for the correction Shawn. I fixed my error. Yet another typo that the spell check helper didn’t help with. 🙂
Brian
And I thought my commute was bad! It took me 1.5 hours to go 51kms to Kemptville. The distance is a little longer than normal because I had to pick up the kids at school.
Its funny. I drove to the office yesterday and had a shitty drive home. Today, I worked from home because of the weather only to have it improve throughout the day to the point where it would not have had an effect on my commute.
Shawn
It took me 1.5 hr. to go 22Km from Kanata to Dow’s lake. When I lived in Oxford Mills, it took me 40 min to drive the 62Km home.