The Warm Sector of a Complex Low

One of the nastiest weather situations is when you are in the warm sector of a complex low. If the low along a front is deep enough it will significantly bend the front until the is a wedge of warm air surrounded by cold air. It results in a lot of precipitation and general misery. One the cold front passes, the weather will return to more normal conditions.

It doesn't sound too bad, except in the winter.

Last night it warmed up quite a bit and rained most of the night. The nice part of the rain is to did beat back a bunch of snow but now the cold front has passed and everything is starting to freeze. Weather like this reeks havoc on a city. The roads ad sidewalks turn to skating rinks. The plummeting temperature combined with the whipping wind makes being outside miserable and it worsens by the second. It's not nice at all.

Today in Ottawa, we are experiencing this.

There are a few lakes from the rain and if you are parked in the lake, you may be there until the next warm day. I was standing in three inches of water on top of ice and the wind was blowing me along. Thankfully I did not fall down, that would have ruined my day.

The good part of bad weather is it does not last forever. This will pass and we will be back to typical winter weather, where if you dress for it, you can be outside. Travel to where you need to be will get easier and life will resume.

Ottawa has been having a rather vigorous winter. The Rideau Canal was open before New Year's Eve for the first time in a decade. It's been cold, it keeps snowing and it doesn't look like its going to let up anytime soon.

Being Canadian means you like to talk about the weather and right now the weather is not nice in the nation's capital, but like all things, good and bad, it will change.

What a Pain in the......Back

I've had back pain on and off most of my adult life. I think it's probably from working in a lumber yard and as a gliding instructor.

The lumber yard led to lifting a lot of heavy stuff and carrying it, often around corners and in houses where you can't always do it properly.

I have done over 2600 landings in a Schweizer 2-33 glider and nearly 2000 landings in tow planes. Not all of them have been perfect and some of them have hurt.

As of late I've been lucky. My back doesn't hurt very often and when it does, it's very minor. That all changed. I think it started about a month ago. I sneezed while doing the bench-press. My back was sore for a couple of days but it seemed to be ok. Last week-end it started to hurt while I was in Montreal but it was fine in the morning. Yesterday while doing arm curls over a preacher bench, my back slipped out. Way out.

It hasn't hurt like this in years. One of the reasons I exercise regularly is to keep my back strong so this won't happen. I guess it's not perfect. It's just annoying that this may put a crimp in my active lifestyle. I think staying positive will go a long way to getting back to normal.

I'm lucky for all the great things in my life but a back that sometimes bugs me is not on my good list. However, if that's the worst, I'm doing ok.