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Articles by local residents
| Some info about Terrace & area |
admin writes, "Several weeks ago I started exchanging emails with a visitor to the website. May is a future resident, moving to Terrace from the Okanagan area and was curious about the climate, among other things. So below is some of my responses to her emails. Just a reminder that what follows is my opinion. You're allowed to disagree with any opinions I post and are welcome to add a comment. Debate is welcome. However, any comments that verbally abuse me or anyone else will not be tolerated.
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Several weeks ago I started exchanging emails with a visitor to the website. May is a future resident, moving to Terrace from the Okanagan area and was curious about the climate, among other things. So below is some of my responses to her emails. Just a reminder that what follows is my opinion. You're allowed to disagree with any opinions I post and are welcome to add a comment. Debate is welcome. However, any comments that verbally abuse me or anyone else will not be tolerated.
Terrace is about 1.5 hours away (the highway really winds through the mountains). During the spring & summer, it's a beautiful day trip with the blue sky, the Skeena River next to the highway most of the way, big mountains with lots of forests and eagles. But in winter... there's avalanche chutes all along the highway (I've been told about 100), and it can be bad with lots of water from the rain and slush. (Probably comparable to the Sea to Sky highway down south in terms of accidents in winter). Kitimat is about 30 minutes away, and while it doesn't suffer from avalanches in the winter, the highway passes through several snow belts and can be treacherous at times. Winter tires are a must on all highways around here.
As for real estate - both Terrace and Rupert are finally on the upswing after being in an economic depression since about 1999 when the bottom fell out of the regional logging economy. The port in Rupert, which previously handled just coal, wheat and lumber, is being expanded to an international container port. So the housing market is getting hot there. I don't know what the vacancy rate is like in Rupert. Terrace will get a little spin-off from the port, but right now the economy is being fed by mines being built in Galore Creek and mineral exploration in the northern valleys. People are going a bit crazy with their prices. Homes that are worth about $200,000 or more are inflated (I think it's mostly due to Vancouver residents, used to high prices, think anything under $200,000 must be junk because it's cheap). I've lived in my trailer on a piece of land for 16 years now, and the value has just returned to where it was when I first bought it (there had been a lot of foreclosures in the area 1999-2006).
The rental vacancy is still good too with house rentals still being affordable. If you do decide to buy in Terrace, be sure to check out the proximity to the yearly flood areas. The worst hit are usually the neighbourhoods of Old Remo, New Remo, Dutch Valley, Brauns Island and parts of Queensway Drive. They did a lot of reinforcement this past spring, but they found the higher water table caused some flooding in lower south parts of the city where there usually isn't a visible problem.
As for snowfall, it's not that bad - I don't own a snowblower, I use a shovel. Now Stewart, that's a different story! It all depends on the temperature of the Pacific Ocean. Of course, this past winter was a little freaky with all the storms - we received above average snowfall on the mountains which caused spring floods that were the highest in about 80 years.
The past 10 years or so the winters have been milder than when I was a kid. The past 5 years I've shoveled maybe 4 times each year, sometimes less - and I only shovel when there's at least 6 inches in my driveway (or temperature is about to rise and I want to try and prevent lots of slush) because I drive a low-slung car. This past winter I shoveled maybe 6? times. We don't count on having a white Christmas - it usually turns mild just before and turns cold around New Years. The weather can feel too cloudy and wet at times. We can have some wild temperature swings, going from -5 to +3 in less than a day.
There is also a lot of influence from the high-pressure ridges that develop in the north and east. When the weather turns clear and cold, the wind howls from the north through the river valleys (outflow winds), dropping the temperature. It takes several days for the temperature to return closer to 0 as the cold air sits in the valley bottom. That lag time is when we usually get a dump of snow - usually between 8 to 14 inches of snow over 1 or 2 days. Then it usually warms up to just above 0 and everything gets slushy.
We have fewer of the really cold days (-12 and colder). I plug the car in when it starts to reach -15. I think I plugged in the heater maybe 3 days this past winter, and just once the year before. Winter tires are a must around here with the freezing/thawing on the hills and highways. I should also mention that downtown Terrace is almost 5 degrees warmer than say my neighbourhood on the bench in Thornhill so they see less snow than me.
Well, I think that's enough info for now. By the way, I had a chance to go on a helicopter flight in July and I took my camera along. I've posted most of the photos on the website in the photo gallery. I took photos of the ski hill in the Shames Mountain valley, some of the mountain ridges between Terrace and Shames, photos of the main bridges between Terrace and Thornhill, photos of the city (Kalum Valley, Sleeping Beauty Mountain, Copper Mountain). Photo Gallery photos
Enjoy! Suzette
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Posted on Sep 07, 2007 21:04pm.
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