Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Severe Blizzard About To Hit Newfoundland !!!

Well it's looking like I might be going "radio silent" for a few days, as we're about take a direct hit from a very powerful blizzard, even by Northern Newfoundland standards... 70+ cm (28+ inches) of snow with hurricane-force winds of 147 km/h (91+ mph) for "several hours". It's pretty much a given that we will have no electricity for the next few days, which means no internet... not even a cellphone will help us out, as our home just happens to be in about the last remaining dead-zone in this universe! So no piano playing for me any time soon... BUT... I do also have a portable keyboard which works on batteries for 20 hours at a stretch, so if we still have a roof over our heads by tomorrow night I can still play my music!

At the moment our local forecast has a "blizzard warning" posted, as well as a "storm surge" warning. They're calling for 12+ metre (40 feet, Yikes!) waves, in addition to an 80 cm storm surge, which just so happens to coincide with an abnormally high tide around midnight Friday and again late Saturday morning, meaning that our coastal infrastructure (roadways, shorelines, wharves, fishing stages, etc) will most assuredly take a real beating.

Our youngest daughter is an RCMP police officer right here on our island, and it's quite likely that the only mode of transportation to respond to emergencies will be via snowmobile, as our roads could be blocked for days. It could make for a LOT of snowmobiling for the "Mounties", as our island covers over 250 sq/kms of unforgiving terrain!

So, here's hoping that our very old (estimated 125-140 years old) traditional Newfoundland "salt box-style" two-storey home will remain intact. I will write back as soon as we are connected again to the outside world... but if you don't here from me for a few days, no worries... it likely will just mean that we have no electricity/internet/cellphone service. Wish us luck!!



(our latest forecast showing winds gusting to 147 km/h!)

camperbc - here's best wishes for you and your family. I have heard so many wonderful things about Newfoundland. I look forward to hearing you are safe and well.

Makes my -40 deg weather in BC sound trivial. Stay warm.

Good luck and stay warm! You're lucky that you have a Mountie who will be checking in on "mom & dad"!

Thank-you everyone, for your kind well-wishes; very much appreciated! Well, this is certainly the calm before the storm. There is no snow falling yet, and there's just a very slight breeze at the moment, but this is looking like it's going to be a very bad one.

We've definitely seen our share of powerful storms here on Fogo Island over the 12 years that we have lived here, but this is the first time we have seen a weather office statement that says we can expect damage to buildings, serious coastal erosion, blown-in windows, etc. We managed to survive a direct hit from Hurricane Igor back in September of 2010, in which we experienced winds of 173 km/h, but this could be even worse, especially with the possibility of receiving over 90 cm of snow along with the hurricane-force winds.

It takes quite a bit to frighten this old dude, but one never gets used to these terrible winds we experience here in Northern Newfoundland. Thank God our summers are gorgeous at least, because the winters really suck! It may be worth noting that our humble abode sits right at the very edge of the mighty North Atlantic, in fact we are so close to the ocean that we can actually throw a stone right into the water from our front door. This has to be about the worst place to be living when we get these terrible storms. Even just 30 miles inland, its usually a whole different ballgame, but when you live right at the water's edge, particularly in the northeast corner of the province, we get the most snow, and by far the strongest winds... and of course 40 foot waves and 80cm storm surges right in your own front yard are certainly no picnic either! It truly astonishes us that these old homes can withstand repeated hurricane-strength winds. Our houses might not look like much, but Newfoundlanders have certainly mastered constructing homes that can withstand the test of time. A large percentage of this island's houses are well over a century old, and yet are somehow still standing to this day!

Experience tells us that there would be simply no point in even attempting to sleep upstairs tomorrow night, because once the winds get up above 120 km/h, our house rocks/shakes/vibrates violently, with the upstairs being much worse than down on the main level. We have witnessed before, with our own eyes, our large coffee table vibrate its way clear across our living room floor as if it were a living thing, moving from one side of the room to the other! We once looked out our living room window to see our front deck floating right up several inches off the ground and just hovering there for awhile, before settling itself right back down on the ground again, just as if nothing had ever happened.

I once ventured outdoors to inspect our home for damage after the worst of a storm had passed, and before I was able to get back inside the wind suddenly picked up again, and the only thing that kept me alive that day was a tall wooden fence post cemented into the ground, which I was somehow able to grab a hold of. Had I not hung on tightly when I did, I would have been blown clear across our property, right over the road and straight into the church cemetery. My terrified wife was totally helpless when she looked out our kitchen window and witnessed me hanging onto this post for dear life, while both of my legs were being lifted clear off the ground... much like you would see in a cartoon... I was horizontal! As I said above, one never gets accustomed to the kind of winds we experience here at this time of year!

I'm attaching a few snowstorm pics taken a few years ago. This will give you an indication of just how bad our blizzards can be. These photos were taken the last week of March, 2017. The day before these were taken, we did not even have a trace of snow on the ground; this all came in less than 16 hours, if you can even imagine! The blue and white house you can see to the right sits a full 17 feet high at the peak of the roof. So that snow is almost 17 feet deep... where the day prior there was not even a trace of snow!

My apologies that this thread isn't more music-related, but at this time it's so difficult to even think about my piano when we are so worried about how we will get through the next 48 hours or so. But this will all be behind us soon enough, and then I can return to doing what I love the most... playing my piano!

😱

Wouldn't mind taking some of that snow here instead but I guess we can't negotiate with the weather.

And too much is too much. But would be nice to have some at least. Better be careful what I wish for... 🌨️

Where I live snow is a novelty. Needless to say, snow like that is almost unheard of. It must make life extremely difficult.

Mind yourself. In a short while it will be spring!

We used to have a lot of snow during the winter. No snow this winter and not much rain either and as a result there’s currently a water crisis in some Bulgarian areas with some dams almost empty, some cities and villages being on a regime with no tap water at intervals...

It's difficult to imagine, for someone from snuggly little Denmark, where everything and everybody are very nearby, how it must be to be cut off from everything and everyone by such extreme weather. But for what it is worth: warmest wishes from Denmark!



If only we could send you some of the ridiculous amounts of excess rain we've received over the past year ...

Oh my. I was just complaining to my sister in Connecticut about the 9 inches we got yesterday. Be safe. Do you not try to get off the island before such weather or is there no easy way to do that?

I don't remember if it was camperbc whom I asked what the catch was living in Newfoundland after some great pictures of the island and the fact it's not overpopulated... I guess it was him. But seems like there's some extreme weather from time to time, so that's the catch 😥 Hope all is well, no damage and quick recovery to normal life afterwards.

Pretty sure from DR films and TV series the sun never comes out in Denmark?

In ordinary years it does happen that sunshine comes through, although it didn't in 2019.

Kidding aside, I believe the actual explanation is that DR never films on sunny days. At least it would appear they always want everything they do to be very dark. And the sound is always so muffled, that we need subtitles to know what is being said. But since they invariably speak in a ghastly Copenhagen accent, that's probably just as well.

What! Danes need subtitles to understand Danish? Does that say something? I think that says something... 😂😂😂

Hey camperbc. I'm here in the blizzard too, but I'm in St. John's so that's a whole different situation...hunker down and stay safe, hopefully this time tomorrow the worst will be over. Jigs Dinner if we don't lose our power!

No snow/cold here in Ukraine this winter while we used to have really plenty of it.

I hope you and yours are holding on there, camperbc, stay safe and warm!

CyberGene, if you've been following the North American news these past few weeks you'll know that severe winter weather has been hitting many regions of Canada. (and the USA too) So no, I wouldn't call a bad maritime storm a "catch", in my opinion. Sure, I could post hundreds more photos showing how stunningly beautiful it is here for much of the year, but I thought some folks might be interested in seeing a few pics of the freak storm we had three years ago, and to also mention that we have another one coming.

It's just a bad storm, after all... it happens pretty much everywhere on this planet of ours, I would think. Hardly worth calling it a "catch" though. Buy hey, it's all good. We wouldn't want to live anywhere else. We love the fact that we have no crime here, no pollution, no noise, no traffic problems. We can walk down the street in the middle of the night without having to worry about being assaulted, or worse. We never have to lock our doors, nor ever take the keys out of the ignition, and in this day and age that should count for something, right? I'll happily tolerate an occasional bad storm, rather than be living somewhere which doesn't offer any of the above benefits.

Hey, sorry, didn't want to imply "catch" as a bad thing. I mean, take it as a bit of envy on my side: if there's some place on earth that seems so beautiful and there aren't problems and people are nice and it's not overcrowded, I need to find justification for myself why I'm not there and here it is: there are blizzards! But no, it's just a self-justification, not meant to belittle your beautiful home place in any way! And apologies if it may have came out that way again. Cheers!

There are no utopias.

There is no ‘Newfoundland’.

The newest found land was the Americas, and that was over 500 years ago. That’s pretty old in my book.