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12 | 20 | 2018 VOLUME 23 | ISSUE 49
BEFORE DIGITAL, THERE WERE CARDS AND POST LIVING HERE PAGE 30
COMMENT PAGE 10
FORGET EVERYTHING AND JUST ENJOY CHRISTMAS
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Christmas on its way!
It’s that time of the year – Santa’s big scene. Among his stops in the area, St. Nick made an appearance at Wellesley village’s Christmas Tyme Parade Dec. 7. See more on p. 9.
COUNCIL / WOOLWICH
Councillors like speed humps in bid to boost traffic-calming measures STEVE KANNON SPEED HUMPS IF NECESSARY, but not necessarily speed humps. The vehicle-slowing roadway additions were the centre of attention this week as Woolwich council discussed a new trafficcalming report. Councillors largely lamented an apparent lack of progress in addressing some consistent com-
plaints about speeding and related issues on a variety of township roads. Woolwich has a process, first adopted in 2015, that does appear to react slowly following public complaints about safety on a given road. Starting with an examination of the street to see if it warrants a study, the township then moves to traffic monitoring: speed TRAFFIC CALMING | 7
White Christmas unlikely Recent mild spell undoes early snowfall, with milder winter in the forecast VERONICA REINER WITH PREDICTION MODELS ALL over the map, winter will be hard to gauge this year. However, we can expect the season in Waterloo Region to be milder and a little shorter than what we got last year, according to Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips. “There’ll be moments ahead where we’re reminded where we live: the second coldest country in
the world and the snowiest country in the world,” said Phillips. “But my sense is when we come right down to it, add up all the numbers – we won’t be as bad as we were last year.” While it may have felt differently over the past few months due to the excess precipitation, winter has not yet begun – the official start date arrives tomorrow (December 21). “Fall is a glorious time of the year,” said Phillips. “People like the fall, and
this year we felt cheated; it was short. We went from sweat to slush. Precipitation was up in October, November. It tended to be more of the white stuff than the liquid stuff.” Indeed, Waterloo Region has already seen more snow than usual, getting between 30-35 cm versus the average 25 cm for this time of year – which was good news for those dreaming of a white Christmas, at least until the recent spate of mild weather,
though there are flurries in the forecast. What’s unique about the 2018/2019 winter season is the presence of an El Niño, which is the warmer portion of a phase known as the El-Niño-Southern oscillation cycle that describes a fluctuation cycle in temperature between the ocean and the atmosphere. The cooler variant of the phrase is called La Niña. FORECAST| 8
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