It's been darned cold in BC and Alberta over the past few weeks. We were in Calgary last weekend and it was -30c without wind chill. The cold has continued, as described in a recent National Post article.
Pine Beetle
There may be a good side to the cold, which is that the pine beetle infestation should be hindered. The only real thing that kills the pine beetle is -35 degree temperator sustained for about a week. I'm not sure if it's hit that because I don't know if it's the absolute or wind chill temperature that kills the beetle, or whether the forests have reached that temperature, but I'm hopeful that the cold snap will be useful for something.
I've been somewhat worried about the Pine Beetle making it into Canada's arboreal forest in the Canadian shield. The Pine Beetle had made the jump from BC into Banff park in Alberta over the rockies a few years ago, so there's no natural barrier between the current infestation and the forest. There's Mountain Pine Beetle information from Alberta and BC, with the most striking being a BC interior map.
There's some more photos in a list of photos, and one is
Aerial View
