The Biggest Freeze: Montreal's Catastrophic Ice Storm of 1998
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- In January of 1998, one of the most incredible winter storms hit the Saint Lawrence corridor. For four consecutive days, freezing rain fell from Kingston Ontario to Bangor Maine, resulting in over 3 inches of accumulated ice. The incredible weight toppled 17,000 telephone poles and 1300 electric transmission towers, destroyed millions of trees, halted all travel and made the daily routines of modern society nearly impossible in Montreal. Following one of the warmest years on record in Canada, the sudden severity and lengthy duration of the ice storm took many by surprise. Today we’ll investigate the role our friend El Nino played in this devastating event, learn how ice this thick can accumulate in the perfect conditions, and review in-depth the indescribable damage from what is likely the worst natural disaster in Canadian history.
Sources and Further Reading:
controlc.com/6...
The Biggest Freeze: Montreal's Catastrophic Ice Storm of 1998
4 inches of ice is insane and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of this, thanks her covering all kinds of weather events and keep them entertaining.
At least here in Ottawa, the ‘98 ice storm really is the only winter storm we still talk about to this day. It was that impactful.
Lucky ! I was in the middle of it. I lived it.
Just be glad you didn't live it. I remember transformers blowing up in town in blue flashes, constant tree branches crashing. No electricity and therefore no heat for me. It was dangerous going outside if you lived nar trees. Also, highline poles and electrical lines falling.
@@seameology You mean, like in most residential neighbourhood of Montréal where there are almost as many trees as buildings... Was living in Vileray at the time. A tree in the front yard of almost every house, and more in some back yard.
@@dawson.strachan03 Preach!
Were you around for the six tornadoes in 2018? I live in Aylmer, and I notice that when you mention the much-more-recent tornadoes, people react with a casual, "Oh yeah, I remember that."
But when you mention the ice storm, it's "OMG that shit was f-ing NUTS!" 😳
Ice storms really are the worst. Thanks for another great video!
I went through this ice storm in northern NY. I think I'd much rather go through that again than a hurricane or big tornado
@@joeg5414 Agreed, but only due to the threat level of tornadoes.
We got hit by six tornadoes in a single day in 2018. The damage caused by those six tornadoes was an absolute joke compared to the damage of this ice storm (same area), but...I don't shit myself 10x per minute when an ice storm rolls through town! lol
Ice storm causes inconvenience.
Tornadoes cause sudden death.
I choose inconvenience all day long.
My then-new husband and I visited his parents in the extreme eastern part of Virginia for Christmas in 1998. While we were there that part of Virginia experienced an ice storm that knocked over trees and power poles and cut power to everyone in the rural area where they lived. We actually had a very nice Christmas, and because my in-laws were used to bad weather they had plenty of water and also battery-operated lamps, radios, and so on. We used the gas oven for heat. It wasn't nearly as bad as the one in Montreal, but it wasn't a lot of fun.
I remember my parents and sister telling me about this when I was a kid. They lived out in the woods, so they didnt have power for a very long time, but they faired better than most since they had a fireplace and generators
There's a fairly good documentary on this Montreal ice storm on TH-cam.
It's title is: The Worst Natural Disaster in Canadian History (Ice Storm 1998)
And it is on the "Discover Montreal" TH-cam channel. It gives a lot more information about how extremely serious the situation was, and makes the weather element a bit easier to understand....explaining the role the topography and geography played.
WEll worth a watch if this interested you.
I remember hearing about the 1996 Spokane ice storm, supposedly it was pretty bad but I’m not sure to what extent. Would be interesting to hear about it, My father still talks about those days without power!
This isnt just Quebec, Ottawa in Eastern Ontario was affected just as much.
"hey grandpa, tell us about that time it was cold" because who doesn't like old weather stories
As a Canadian, seeing canada focused content from one of the best weather channels on youtube is always the best
Great job as always. I remember following this as it happened
trying to find content around your country must be a constant reminder of how worthless and insignificant it really is.
L Canadian
As an American, f*ck it. I don't need to gloat to get attention of a TH-camr. Drops 🎤🥇
attention? what is bro sayin? are you an ipad baby or somethin? MF talking about attention, lol.@@terencehill2320
The longest lasting damage that storm caused for our family was our relationship with our neighbors. People from all over Quebec were donating their firewood to people without power who wanted to stay home. Our neighbors kinda abused the system a bit (they had two cars so they pretended they were from two different households to get twice the free wood). When they suggested we should go get some free firewood for ourselves, my father very tactfully replied: "We're not beggars. We can afford wood". Neighbors didn't speak to us for about two years after that. Fun times.
I don't see a problem. They knew they were being shitty. Don't need shitty people in your life.
Your Dad sounds like a man with integrity. I'm certain you taught the same values to your own children.
We were living in Northern Vermont in 1998. We fared well, but the effects on the region were tremendous.
ya it was a interesting storm
Same @ fared well.
I was just outside of Ottawa...whole area wrecked, but our house only lost power for a total of about 8 hours.
I spent my whole two weeks off school just sliding around everywhere. Haha. Good times. 🥰
oui t'était pas loin du triangle noir de saint-jean sure richelieu saint hyacinthe pas loin de la frontiere
After the storm I had a spiderweb on my front porch, the thin strings turned into 3 inch wide crystals hanging midair.
That spider musta scored some serious poon after that...pimp-ass web can't hurt with the ladies! 😎
I picked up a large chunk of ice that broke off one of the power line that ran along the main road near my place. I took the piece home and put it in my freezer. There was at least 4 to 5 inches thick of ice around the core. I also remember the sounds of tree branches breaking from the sheer weight of the ice. Power was out for 8 days for us but my dad he was living in Chambly in the Triangle of Darkness and they were without electricity for about a month and they had to go to a shelter. I'll never forget that time and pray it'll never happen again for a long long time/
I really appreciate the fact you cover Canadian weather in-depth. Most channels will just give it a passing mention or not mention it at all. I enjoy the fact that it is never forgotten in your videos and is a nice change of pace from the typical America centric meteorological side of the internet. I’m definitely biased saying this, being from Southern Ontario, but I think an interesting story you should cover is that of May 21st, 2022. A very recent example of a very harsh Canadian weather event. Love the content man, always brightens my day when I get a notification that you’ve uploaded.
Yeah i agree it was very sudden as well. Honestly never expected it to come
I appreciate him covering Québécois weather, who won't be mentionned at all anywhere, especially not under that name even if scottish weather is simply scottish weather in the anglo-centric world. Might be biaised too. But what was the story of May 21st 2022 again?
@Game_Hero it was a massive dercho event caused a ef3 tornado as well forgot the town it hit though.
@@cheesewedge3015 After looking, that tornado was in Uxbridge, Ontario. There was also one at Lake Scugog. Both of which were EF2. That dercho also deeply impacted Québec (as well as Ontario).
@@Game_Hero May 21st 2022 was a surprise derecho that hit southern ontario and Quebec, causing thousands of power outages and killing 8 people
Would you be interested in covering the Children's Blizzard of 1888? An unseasonably warm winter day on the Canadian prairies resulted in children going to school in their Spring clothes, only for a blizzard to plunge the area to -40°C, resulting in many children freezing to death.
damn that's wild
It was real though
My grandparents were stuck in a second home in the Adirondak Mountains in northern New York. They had a wood stove to keep the house warm.
After three days listening to trees snap like gunshots they drove out behind a plow truck and a national guard humvee.
Thanks for the video!
I was a grad student in meteorology at McGill for this event. I actually flew back from BC after spending Christmas there and arrived just as the freezing rain had passed through Toronto. Because of delays I actually stayed overnight at Pearson and ended up missing my first day back. When I woke up the power was starting to already go out. I ended up losing power three times, but my tropical fish tank survived somehow.
But yeah, it was so surreal "the night the power went out in Montreal" and seeing the only illumination being car lights. I ended up staying at some friends' that evening because the busses were all packed because the Metro was shut down. I actually ended up walking home that night.
I still remember the sounds of the cracking of the trees, and even though there was that one last transmission line which didn't go down we were so lucky. But I had no idea that the collapses happened because of oscillations from ice shedding. That could actually explain why that last line didn't go down. When I first heard about how it was the only one which didn't I remember talking to my colleagues that there wasn't any good reason that it shouldn't have collapsed since although the ice was worse south, the line which didn't had the same load as a couple of lines which did.
Great coverage for this historic event. My family lived through some of this in the Ottawa and southern Quebec area just east of Drummondville. One correction, on a number of occasions you mention Hydro Canada. That is not a thing. Ontario had Hydro-Ontario (defunct in 2015) and Quebec has Hydro Quebec. In Canada the electrical distribution companies are provincial organizations. It means a lot less today as many of these are sadly now private companies (corporations). Hydro Quebec is a hold out as it is still a provincial institution.
The maple trees being damaged/lost reminded me of something that happened during the 2021 Texas Snowpocalypse. The snow didn't just fall onto plants, it *stayed* on plants. The red-tipped photinia outside my window was rocking 1, 1.5, 2 solid inches of snow on each of its leaves, and it stayed on there for just about a week -- absolutely enough to kill off all its leaves, and that's what all the plants (most not built for significant snow cover) around here faced. It came back just fine eventually, but the week after the Snowpocalypse...it looked like a week in fall. Dead leaves falling from barren trees; dead vines clinging to roofing and eaves; dying plants dropping flowers like they're just about to leave for the year. My biggest regret is not thinking to take a picture of it. Plenty of pictures of other things, though.
Most native plants survived and came back (even the blackberry bushes in the local park...how they survive everything they do, I have no idea). And on the bright side, according to the Galveston Ornithological Society, many tropical invasive plant species were eradicated from the Gulf Coast and surrounding areas due to the freeze, so that's something.
I was just a toddler when this hit Maine in 1998, always heard stories about how devastating this storm was. I just found your channel very recently, and it’s cool learning more about an event that hit an area in my lifetime.
Here in Finland we have one of the most cold winters in like 30 years going on now. Apparently most of northern europe has had cold start of winter and lots of snow.
Lived in Maine my whole life, born in '87. Easily one of the biggest natural disasters Maine has faced. I live in a rural town and power took at the least a week - week and a half to get turned back on. Tree almost fell on our house and it was eerie standing outside and hearing all the limbs crashing. Quite the experience that I hope this state never sees again in my lifetime.
And the pops and bangs of all the transformers exploding on the poles.
17:59 I listen to this as I'm iced in in Texas. Granted half an inch isn't much for where I used to live but for here it shut down everything.
Wow, Texas? That's pretty wild!
There are a lot of things a guy might expect to see in Texas...ice isn't one of them!
I remember a bad ice storm around Toronto in 2013 just before Christmas.
I think my city was spared from the worst of tree damage only because of the Emerald Ash Borer. It had killed lots of trees, which happened to be removed months before the ice. For sure, my own house would have been destroyed by a dead tree that had been removed just months before.
I've never seen anything so destructive that looked so beautiful with ice coating everything.
Just turned off my wife’s show for this lol
She'll understand don't worry
You should do a video on the April 4, 1966 EF4 tornado that crossed the entire Florida peninsula and killed 11 people, injuring hundreds more. I haven’t seen a single video on TH-cam about this tornado and yours would be the first. I got this info from the tornado archive website but you could do the topic much more justice.
I know thats worse than the Tulsa ice storm of 2007 but the difference is Montreal is built to handle snow and ice, Tulsa not so much. Some sources say we had 3 inches of ice, thats not accurate we had closer to 3/4's of an inch but that was enough to knock out power to 80% of thr city and knock over a lot of trees.
The music was perfect... I always find myself listening to the intro music every video...
Oh wow, this video has so much rich information, thank you Steve.
Split Jet streak? That's interesting and kind of suspicious.
Inverted Low Pressure trough? WOW, more common in equatorial tropical cyclones you say? As in, where they move westward instead of eastward and the atmospheres structure is closer to being perfectly Barotropic, correlation or no?
OMG, now I wonder if the deformation zone in a midlatitude cyclone seems to have some characteristic relationship to the development of "Baroclinic Waves", either when they begin or when they start to degrade. Like, as if Deformation has something to do with Density Gradients and how they do NOT align with Isobars from the surface up to any respective pressure level, maybe because of the cyclone orientation to the Temperature Gradients they move along.
Oh my goodness there seems to be a relationship and this makes sense that its very pronounced in the winter when Pressure Gradients (or thicknesses of geopotential height) between the Equator and Poles are the most extreme. Am I crazy or is there something to this?
I see weatherbox, I click.
This has been an event I've been fascinated by for years! While there are lots of videos out there about this event, no other video does a better job of explaining the meteorology behind what happens better than your video. Keep you the great work!
Oddly perfect timing for a video about an ice storm. Tell the midwest to take their weather back pls
Edit: I'm way too familiar with freezing rain over here. Gets trapped in the willamette valley and columbia gorge too much. Then people make fun of the PNW as if we can't deal with a "regular winter storm" when it's hills of ice on untreated roads lol
OMG almost jumped out of my seat when I saw this! Thanks for covering it. I’m a bit too young to have been around for it, but every Montrealer (and people from the surrounding areas) who did have it firmly engraved into their memories. I’ve heard lots of stories.
I lived further up north so i did not witness that ice storm, but my boyfriend did: he lived near Drummondville back then. He was lucky his grandmother was in a care facility for elders (who are still independent): these had priority access to electricity. She had him and his mother come live with her during the crisis, in her tiny 1 bedroom quarters.
There are a few videos on here (in French mostly) where they interview people, and you can feel the sadness and trauma 😢
rightfully so. N'oublions jamais.
11:48 New Finland!
Fantastic piece, Steve - how about doing a video about Boston's nightmarish February 2015? 110 inches of snow in just over a week, and the havoc it caused was insane...we pray every year to never have one like that again...🙂
love the content man keep it up!
interesting point on the El Nino - currently despite being some of the largest recorded El Nino events currently Australian weather is showing the actions of a la Nina event, we've had a significantly wetter and cooler summer in parts of SE Aus
The Goldy Locks zone, it makes perfect sense. The Rain/Snow line is pretty simple when you consider just those 2 precipitation types, it's the parameters that contribute to that layer which has a certain thickness to it of which divides the Sleet from the Freezing Rain that are complex to understand.
I think I get it though, on your video where you described the 4 graphs with the Rain/Snow line at the warm/cold air boundary, there are 2 scenarios where the line is skewed in the vertical to create a condition where there is a LAYER that is either substantially thick or rather thin as any precipitation falls through it allowing for the liquid to freeze.
This video just gave me the best perspective for which to stand on how this works, so 2 thumbs up Steve; you are nailing it. And if I think about it more that thin layer is responsible for the freezing rain but if its thick enough the rain will freeze and have enough distance to continue accumulating water droplets around the Nuclei until it becomes the "Sleet" which my mind sees it as WARM Solid State water; wherein the Freezing Rain is the inverse that is COLD Liquid State water. Sleet is like snow that can stay solid above 0° C. and Freezing Rain can stay liquid below 0° C.
I think I finally get why on COD (College of DuPage):weather numerical models has a parameter they call "Critical Thickness" and by no coincidence their notes state that the parameter "is an In House favorite for forecasting precipitation types" by comparing the locations of the various thickness levels denoted by the distance between the lowest and highest geopotential heights on the isobars.
You're awesome Steve, this video is friggin sweet and everything checks out, one of the best videos yet. I watch a lot of artists on TH-cam who have Patreon to help them fund their music and as a musician I feel compelled to help them out but for whatever reason I feel like what you're doing with this channel is the best art on this platform. WEATHERBOX drops a video and I sit down with scribe and paper and I learn.
If Weatherbox had a patreon, I would donate what I can afford, no questions asked.
@weatherbox
I lived (and still do) in Plattsburgh, New York when the ice storm struck. I was 6 years old and I still remember how terrible and terrifying it was. The trees & power lines snapping and falling sounded like War and it ended up giving me nightmares for a couple years, honestly.
Glad me & my family ended up surviving.
You should do a video on a F4 tornado that hit Augusta MI back in 74. It destroyed the entire village. I'd love to hear the Meteorology on it!
I didn't know how like... situational freezing rain was. Like it makes SENSE because i DONT see it all of the time but I'm also so used to it being a possibility as a midwesterner I didn't think about the conditions it takes to make it.
Good video as always I enjoy learning about weather events through you!
Native Michigander here. We had an ice storm in April 2018 that knocked out a lot of power in the metro Detroit area. My family was without power for about two or three days. I remember seeing icicles coated on the power lines in our backyard. (Thankfully none of those lines ever fell). It was probably the worst ice storm I'd ever seen. But my experience with that storm is *nothing* compared to the Montreal one. I can't even *imagine* looking outside and seeing thick ice over everything possible.
My family is from northern ny on the st. Lawrence river. Roughly 2 hours east of montreal and they got pounded just like this no power for over a week. Complete lockdown. My mom said that if you left your house you would be arrested
This is really the only winter storm people from Ontario and Quebec still talk about to this day. My family lives in Ottawa. I wasn’t alive in ‘98 but my father certainly was apart of the cleanup efforts.
I'm from Ottawa and it's awesome to see this content, thank you for telling this story!! Also my family had that book on our coffee table growing up it's a great way of telling the story in picture!
I was 3 years old living in the North Country in New York when this storm hit. I don't remember a whole lot about it since I was so young, but what I do remember was everyone around me being scared and seeing all the downed trees and power lines after it was done.
I went to a disaster response safety training class and they said that the piece of equipment most likely to hurt their user was (unsurprisingly) chainsaws, but #2 was generators. They also pointed out how important it is to look out for widowmakers, broken branches hanging from trees and just waiting for a gust of wind to come crashing down on someone’s head. Hopefully I won’t need the training anytime soon 😬
People died in the Adirondacks due to people using them indoors.
I can’t remember which year it was, but one winter in Massachusetts the snow accumulation was so high it was blocking dryer and other housing vents, which resulted in tragic and senseless deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. We now have a law requiring carbon monoxide alarms in addition to smoke & fire alarms.
Great video as usual. You need to do a video on Snowmageddon 2010! Almost none on TH-cam at all
Nice explanations of the process behind the storm and the mechanism of transmission tower failure.
I remember that I was in Quebec City and all we had was snow there. We never felt to lucky to have snow.
Great content! I am fascinated by (and terrified of) ice storms since the 2021 North American Winter Storm. I'd love to see a complete analysis of that event.
My dad a vermonter was in this storm in VT. we said he remembers seeing the plow train get stuck and freeze on its wheels in a hour he also remembered the power lines down all over. This also was met he said by lightning up and down lake champlain with 10 boats sunk in the bay.
I was a teenager when this happened and school closed for several weeks. Me and my friends were bored so we tried to walk to rent a movie not even considering that the rental place was probably closed.
Gotta talk about the repeated snowstorms of 2016, 2015 or 2014 can’t quite remember which year it was anyway Boston got 100+ inches of snow and in my neighborhood park we had a mountain of snow because there was no other room for it
That's right, these would be awesome examples to learn from.
You got the T-shirt!! I remember you saying you wanted the T-shirt for the 1977 blizzards, so I'm glad you got the T-shirt for the 1998 ice storm.
I don't think I've ever been so grateful to live in the UK, I was 17 that winter - and don't really remember hearing about this anywhere. Thank you for the diagrams and graphs you include which help make things clearer for the non-weather nerds (weather non-nerds? Something?) like me. You're one of the best weather channels on TH-cam, thank you.
I remember this. Man, 26 years ago now. When did I get old? Sadge.
My neighbour's tree cracked one night and smashed his van, then the other half of his tree came down the next night. If it hadn't caught on our tree and took it out, it would have smashed into my bedroom through the house while I was sleeping. That was also the same incident where I almost lost my hand to a chainsaw when holding a log for my dad (from the two downed trees). If I hadn't been wearing super thick winter gloves, I would have lost my right hand and it would have ended my career as an artist.
I remember in the following years, Quebec changed the design of their transmission towers to prevent collapses in the future. I think it's only a matter of time before these towers are truly tested.
Is that true? Didn't knew that, thanks for the info about the transmission towers.
This ice strom was a complete freak weather event. The late 1997 through early 1998 El Niño was insane. Even crazier it was followed immediately by a La Niña which led to Atlantic Hurricanes on steroids.
my parents were right smack in the middle of the worst parts of the storm, st jean sur richelieu had it really bad
I can only imagine this was wretched. Not enough credit is given for Cold Tolerance or Cold Shock Protein synthesis as an inate adaptation to genetic evolution.
The only reason I am alive is because "mom and dad" (obviously) and that was contingent upon migration.
Simply put, Dad was born in Minneapolis MN, the family spent the bulk of his childhood dealing with snowdrifts and shoveling driveways every year, eventually the consensus was "F*** this S***" and Southern California was the primary target on their radar, the rest is history.
But just because I never grew up with this, I sympathize for it everywhere. I hate the cold.
One bit of ingenuity that always amazes me during that strom was from the small town of Boucherville, Quebec. When the town lost power and HyrdoQuebec confirmed to the mayor that power would not be restored anytime soon, the mayor checked her options and she thought about 2 Canada National locomotive that were in town. She decided to call Canadian National and ask if the town could borrow the locomotive to use as generators and the Canadian National said yes. So they got ready, drove the locomotives to a railroad crossing near the city hall, then they used a mobile crane to lift it of the track by a few inches, turned it so that it faced the street and they literally drive it on the road. I had no idea beforehand that a locomotive could be driven on a road. It worked, although the road and the locomotive had to be repaired afterwards, but it worked, they they were able to adjust the locomotive's generator to output 60 hertz and they were able to use it to power essential services and shelter. The second locomotive was also left running to be used as a source of heat for other people outside.
That Boards of Canada-style opening music is so awesome-canada-film-board, their original inspiration. What's the source?
Snow in the forecast and a new weatherbox video what a dream! Also props for pronouncing Bangor almost correctly!
My baby was being born but I had to step out to watch this. Guess who’s getting split custody 😛
Worth it
I clearly remember that El Niño because of all the bizarre weather it spawned in California that year. Hardest rain I’ve ever seen in CA, with streets flooding in minutes. Snow in the mountains in June. It was a weird time.
I was there. The ice was absolutely wild. It took days to get a generator from three hours away. We were extremely fortunate to have a wood- burning fireplace and to have just gotten a big pile of firewood. The river up the street flooded when it was all over, and my friend's dad had to canoe down the driveway to get help.
Freezing rain is no joke. Roads and sidewalks with even a small amount are tough. I own shoe spikes for that reason. This always shocks me when I see it.
I remember being in high school when this happened. Crazy stuff.
There was a big ice storm when i was about 13 that I'll never forget. We live in rural Iowa, and it left us without power for about a week. We had to put all the food out in the ice and snow, wrapped the water lines in blankets, and all just slept in the living room together next to a couple of kerosene heaters. As hard as it was, there was something very comforting about laying in the dark and just staring at the soft flickering of the flames behind the glass doors of the heaters.
Seeing all the cars and trucks driving around knowing nothing newer than 98 would show up was oddly comforting.
Can you please make a video on deadliest tornado that happened in Bangladesh in 1989
Weather box videos never miss they are always so good
As a Utah skier, can you please put a trigger warning before you bring up splits in the jet stream 😭
The first electric transmission tower that fell was close to where my grandparents resides and my dad was one of the soldiers deployed to help. I personally have no recollection of this event since I wasn’t even 1 year old.
Edit: and for those who want to know, we didn’t have that much problem since my grandparents have a fire place.
Bangor Maine Mentioned!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Seriously though, I just finished reading the book Northeastern by Cathie Pelletier and it's one of the only books I've seen focused on Maine weather. It's about the people affected by the 1952 blizzard and is a really good read.
I remember the ice storm of '98 very well. I live in Oxford County Maine, and we got hit bad. Never seen so much destruction, until that week. Most folks around here, didn't get electricity restored fully until the middle of April. I remember hearing a radio report, that the last customer to have electricity restored in the state, was in October of that year. Hope 5o never see a storm like it again, but it was also the greatest of times, as residents helped one another, with portable generators, had wood stoves to help keep people warm, & had chainsaws to help clear roads of fallen trees. I had worked for a municipality for weeks as a volunteer, clearing up roads for the power company to restore power. Was a storm for the ages, that will never be forgotten..
Thank you for this video! I love seeing videos about us Quebecois! I hope one day you will cover the Déluge du Saguenay!
About us Canadawashed Québécois in a covering that will canadawash this event as well. The word "Québécois" was not stated once, zero footage from Radio-Canada or TVA or any Québécois local perspective. Lol "Hydro-Canada"(18:24), really didn't do research on that front.
@@Game_Hero Thaaa fack are you on about, exactly? 🤨
@@ThisHandleFeatureIsStupid That we, the Québécois nation, will not be portrayed in a culturally accurate way and will be made as if we didn't exist, just like in this video canadawashing us. And it's important because these weather events had an impact on our history yet we're not even background characters in our own story very much often on the Internet, not using our perspective and sources on things that affected us, especially for this Déluge du Saguenay event, it's a crucial event in our recent history in all our history books yet it will be the perspective of others that'll be presented, others to claim credit for efforts that we did on the terrain to manage it.
@@Game_Hero Bah, that's just silly nonsense. It only has meaning because you allow it to.
Don't need to allow it! 👍
I live in Montreal, But i wasn't in 1998 still the ice storm was destructible
This reminds me of the December 2008 ice storm in New England! I remember keeping a fire going in the living room and sleeping on air mattresses while we didn’t have power
Your videos are astonishingly interesting
I was in an ice storm in the mountains in Southern France in January 2005. I'd seen the Montreal ice storm on TV, so I knew what was going to happen when it finally stopped snowing and started raining instead. No one believed me. We were blocked into the village by fallen trees and without power for a day or so before they cleared the roads and brought a generator for the village. Not fun.
We are experiencing a Catastrophic .005 inches of snow here in Houston, pls send prayers
does that El Nino have any effect on Alaska? the weather up here has been very snowy and sometimes warmer than expected
I'm definitely not knowledgable on this stuff, so I looked it up- the impact of an El Niño episode varies by location. From what I understood, Alaska falls in a region that tends to get warmer, but other places can get the opposite effect. Just south of Alaska in BC, our winter has been weirdly warm too (ignoring the arctic outflow that just hit us) but a lot dryer than usual.
Thanks for covering a *Québécois* weather event. It was quite the important event in the history of our people. Also, love the shirt.
Bud, this has nothing to do with the culture of Quebec. It was widespread all over the f-ing place up and down the eastern seaboard. Vermont got smoked, too. I think it's silly to assign some kind of cultural focus / misplaced pride to a weather event.
Tséveudire, big?
@@ThisHandleFeatureIsStupid The gist of it was in Montréal, the title says it, the video constantly says it, most of what's shown is in Montréal and the suburbs, the words "american weather event" not once, yet the word Québécois got not pronounced once."Hydro-Canada" tséveudire? Doesn't mean having a monopoly over it, but a nod to our very existence, given we did have to fight the most of it with Québécois institutions doing the work. When it's a "canadian weather history" moment, zero objection from anyone, even by you, strange isn't it? Even in a place of pride of having fought it through, weird.
Watching this while it’s snowing for the first time in a very long time in Lynchburg VA! Love your videos ❤
You pronounced Bangor as the Mainers do! I was actually in Bangor for this storm, visiting Dad over my uni's winter break. It was also my 21st birthday, lol. I remember the poor UPS driver bringing me a present from my now-husband the day after, skidding the massive layer of ice on our sidewalk. And later chipping at that ice to remove it. So that was fun. But overall, we got off lucky. The power went out for a long while but we were over all fine
Ha! no way you pulled out that book by Mark Abley (pronounced ABE-ly, not AB-ly)! he's my godfather! wonderful man and a great writer and poet.
Nice going, weatherbox! You had an excellent summary of the Montreal ice storm ☔️ on both your b video and short! This shows ice storms can cause more damage than snowstorms because they cover a lot of 🌲 trees and cause blackouts when the branches break and fall on the power lines! Fine story on the disaster!! 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
I remember the storm very well. The sound of the trees just exploding from the weight of the ice is something I'll never forget. You can still see the scars in the formerly heavily forested areas. The maple industry also took a major hit, with a lot of maple trees severely damaged. Scary week.
OH DAMN! My request actually happened. I lived through this in the "Triangle Noir", and it was quite an experience.
Hi. I have a suggestion for a future video. Could you do a video of "The Perfect Storm" which hit the east coast in late October of 1991?
In 1998 my Dad was a teenager. He was in the middle of high school and Toronto he said we didn’t get as much ice, but the schools were cancelled all over southern Ontario.
Tornados, Ice Storms, high winds, hurricanes etc., are the reason all wiring needs to be inside destruction-proof piping deep underground.
As a Alabamain just yesterday we just got 0.20 inches of ice and my heater don’t keep up with the temperature
Your music selection for your vids is top notch. Is someone a Boards of Canada fan?
Your content is great! Keep up the good work.
I lived in Chicago which was not affected, but the news coverage was very thorough. It was huge news.
Once again, why is climate change not fixable? There MUST be an easy fix to it, right?
To think this happened again in 2017 and is very likely to hapen again this year +10C on christmas it just feels like a normal everyday thing at this point 😂
Subbed. Thank you, this was cool and very informative.
love that you do not shy away from talking about anthropogenic climate change.
It's always an interesting day when Weatherbox uploads. Great production as always!
I lived in Maine at the time of this. I was very young, but it’s still a fond memory of it. My parents knew it was coming and went and bought a whole bunch of supplies and a diesel heater. I just remember laying on the floor with my dad and brother playing board games next to the heater.
The power was out for over a week. I just remember looking outside and seeing the dealership across the street covered in ice. Every tree and power line was lying down. Not a human or car to be seen.