Nature’s hammer~

A nor’easter is a sand storm with snow. There, you’ve got it. Occasionally it will be rain, but most of the time–snow. For the person who has never been through one and is just looking at some images–nor’easters may look bitter cold. Quite frankly–it isn’t, but it is very powerful. For myself, I have never felt more alive than during a nor’easter, but that’s just my point of view living in the country. If I lived in town and had to shovel a driveway or had to get to work someplace I might not feel so charitable. 

I’m going to write about this for the person moving to Atlantic Canada from another part of the country. These are just my own observations living in southern New Brunswick, about 16mi/25km in from the Bay of Fundy in the Sussex area. 

My experience is that a nor’easter takes at least three days:

Day one~

Get ready: Get groceries, gas or diesel for the car, tractor, snowblower, generator and so on, draw some water for teakettles and to flush toilets if you are on well water, propane for the camp stove, check and recharge all batteries, phones and flashlights, make sure there is no where you have to go the day of, pick up anything outside that can blow away and make sure to turn the car around so that the hood doesn’t face northeast (snow can blow in through the grille and fill up the entire engine space and drain the battery). Assume you will lose power for at least 4 – 8 hours. Plan on making a soup or stew, something easy to heat up. Have a good book. Board games are fun.

Day two~

Day of the event: Sit inside and watch the show. Make your soup or stew if you haven’t already–you have time if it hits during the day and it is good insurance for a power outage. If it is going to hit during the night you may not have power in the morning, hard to say.

Day three~

Cleanup day. Tractor work, maybe snowblower or ATV with plow, etc. Could take some time. I’ve noticed many times it is the day after we don’t have power.

For what it is worth, I now let it stretch over five days because I’ve learned to be a little kinder to myself. I get our groceries and gas two days before when it isn’t as busy, do any misc stuff the day before, and I now allow two days for cleanup. As long as the animals are looked after and we’re looked after, what difference does it make? 

Nor’easter slideshow~

Above~ A collection of nor’easter images over the years. 

Notes~

We seem to get three to four nor’easters during a winter season, quite often one in November and then at least a couple in the February-March timeline. Often these storms travel in clusters sometimes within a week of each other. By the time you get to the third one in a row the thrill is gone. 

Because of the origin of nor’easters, Atlantic Canada (and the eastern seaboard of the US) are subject to a unique set of circumstances. These storms mainly affect the eastern seaboard of the US and Atlantic provinces. This is in addition to any blizzards or storms or normal winter weather that come from Ontario and Quebec or from the Texas Gulf/US midwest region.

I’ve noticed much of the time the Ontario/Quebec systems seem to hit the northern part of the New Brunswick harder, and nor’easters will often will go off slightly to the east of us hitting Halifax and Nova Scotia before moving off to Newfoundland or out into the sea altogether. There also seems to be a “snow line” running basically from Fredericton to Moncton south of the TransCanada Hwy, and the eastern end of New Brunswick gets more moisture.

In 2019 we had no nor’easters but you could have fooled me. High wind with rain or snow, coming from the northeast, but I guess it didn’t meet the criteria. Some storms classed as nor’easters lose power by the time they get here and the term is dropped. Most of the time they are blowing snow, but occasionally it will be rain. Rain is nasty.

They are all different. The one we recently had on March 14, 2023 wasn’t even worth getting the tractor out to plow.

Power out~

Cooking a stew on the shop wood stove during an extended power outage and getting water from the spring during a nor’easter. Notice the wind was blowing so hard I had trouble directing the water into the container. After that we learned to do some stuff ahead of time. 

After living here five years I figured we had played Russian Roulette long enough and finally bought a generator. But truth is I’ve only used it twice to power the fridge and freezer after an extended power outage. We don’t rush out and hook it up every time we lose power–some of our best moments here have been during power outages–board games and lanterns, supper on the camp stove, etc. The old farm house is astoundingly quiet, a reminder of how things used to be.

Aftermath~

Best case/worst case scenarios~ Some nor’easters leave a tranquil scene with very little cleanup such as shown above. Some leave major drifts like the mega-nor’easter of February 13, 2017 (no, this isn’t normal).

On average, most storms of this type leave a scene like that below with parts of the ground blown bare and a few drifts. 

Records~

Although my records didn’t really start till 2013, dates on my pics + records give: 

2012~ December 30
2013~ February 9, 17
2014~ March 13, 26, 31; November 2, 26, December 9
2015~ January 27, February 15 (Major), March 15
2016~ February 8; December 29
2017~ January 7, February 13 (Major)
2018~ January 4, March 8, 13, 22  
2019~ No storms met criteria.
2020~ December 5
2021~ February 2
2022~ January 29 (Major), February 4, April 19 (both were near nor’easters)
2023~ March 14
2024~ January 10–“Southeaster”– same power, but from the southeast. Strange.

Notes~

After the “Summer from Hell” of 2023 with all that rain, nothing should surprise us. But it did. We had two fairly violent torrential rain storms late 2023 instead of a typical nor’easter, but the one of note was Wednesday, January 11, 2024. We had a nor’easter with driving snow, high winds and then driving rain, except it was from the southeast. Southeaster isn’t a word, but you could have fooled me. The whole house shook. Strange, strange weather patterns.

A salute~

Storms like these make you really appreciate the road and hydro crews who do a first class job trying to keep everything cleared and working, and of course our First Responders who go out to deal with any emergency.

And as always, give a thought for those who must be at sea.

Links~

Nor’easter~ Wiki page on nor’easters including dates of some of the larger storms.

See also~

Snowmageddon 2015~ Our year of the Big Snow