Warm weekend prompts warning from Calgary fire officials to stay off waterways
Recent mild weather has led to unsafe conditions and thin ice, according to the Calgary Fire Department.
And positive temperatures in the weekend forecast will only add to that.
Footprints across the Bow River are signs that many people believe it's frozen enough to walk across from the East Village to St. Patrick's Island – when there's a perfectly good bridge to use.
"It's just better to stay off (the river ice)," said Carol Henke, public information officer with the Calgary Fire Department.
"We have had instances where people have fallen through. The water is extremely cold – hypothermia sets in very quickly and it's just incredibly dangerous."
STORM POND DANGER
Henke is also reminding people to stay off storm ponds any time of the year, as enforced by Calgary Bylaw.
It’s $500 for a first offence.
Henke says the water levels at Calgary's 200 storm ponds will rise and fall with the changing weather patterns, trapping air between the water and a thin layer of ice.
As there is runoff from Calgary roadways, storm ponds also have hidden hazards.
Henke says the Glenmore reservoir is off-limits between October and May.
The freeze-thaw cycle between overnight and daylight can also make for icy walkways.
WINSPORT WELCOMES MILD WEATHER
However, officials at WinSport say the recent weather conditions are just right for their operations, with ideal daily average temperatures just above or below freezing.
It's when temperatures rise into the double digits that snow melts and conditions worsen.
"(It becomes a challenge) more-so with the west winds that we get. We love those chinooks but for us, that makes the snow disappear a little bit faster," said Dale Oviatt, senior communications manager for WinSport.
Oviatt says there's enough of a base mix of artificial and early season snow to keep the ski hill running until April.
He says there have been no operations adjustments so far in January due to weather impacts.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.