I was in Stephenville, NL last week for work, it was my first trip this calendar year. Getting there was no problem, getting back was another story. I was scheduled to fly back from Deer Lake on Thursday afternoon, through St John’s. The storm that went through Toronto on Wednesday, came through Thursday morning with the same snow, ice pellets, freezing rain and then rain. My flight out of St John’s had already been delayed before I got to the Deer Lake Airport, when I checked in, they re-routed me through Halifax instead.

I was able to get to Halifax with no problem, which was good since my flight from Deer Lake to St John’s had been cancelled shortly after I landed. Halifax was pretty busy, I have never seen so many colours on the arrival/departure screens.

I headed to the lounge to wait for my 17:20 flight, only three hours. Eventually my flight was slowly being delayed and eventually cancelled. It turned out that the weather (winds) in Toronto were wreaking havoc in the other airports. There was a hold on all incoming flights until 16:30, anything that hadn’t left their airport of origin were being held. I was able to get booked on another flight for 20:30, originally they tried to re-book me for Friday morning. The incoming flight arrived so I headed down to the gate. The screens were still about the same.

The plane left the gate about 30 minutes late and I arrived at YYZ by 22:15 and eventually in the front door by 23:00. In the end only 5.5 hours behind schedule.

Here is a photo of one of the intersections in Stephenville, note the single traffic light for all four directions. This year is the 50th anniversary since the US closed the Air Force base.

I was meeting with a colleague from St John’s, we made a visit to one of his weather stations down in Burgeo, which was about a 2 hour drive from Stephenville.