Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Communities in southwestern B.C. are bracing for more heavy rain forecast to hit the region on Tuesday, as a third atmospheric river moves in.
But what exactly is an atmospheric river?
Here’s a look at some commonly used extreme weather terms.
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), atmospheric rivers are “relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapours outside of the tropics.”
The NOAA said these vapour columns move with weather systems, and can carry water vapour equivalent to the average flow at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
When they make landfall, the vapour is released as rain or sometimes snow.
Though not always the case, the NOAA said atmospheric rivers can “disrupt travel, induce mudslides and cause catastrophic damage to life and property.”
What’s more, a 2018 study led by researchers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that due to climate change, atmospheric rivers may become slightly less frequent, but will last longer, and become more intense.
According to Brittanica.com, thermal inversion -- also known as temperature inversion – occurs when warm air overlays cool air in the lowest atmospheric region, called the troposphere.
In a normal situation without inversion, warm air is closest to the earth’s surface, with cooler air on top.
The NOAA said temperature inversion occurs because air near the ground cools more quickly than air “aloft.”
“This is most likely when the sky is clear and the wind is light/calm,” the NOAA website reads. “Cooling will occur the most readily in low places (such as valleys sheltered from the wind.)”
The problem, the NOAA said, is that because warm air rises, cooler air under the inversion can’t escape, meaning pollution and smoke becomes trapped.
According to the American Meteorological Society (AMS), a heat dome is an “exceptionally hot air mass” which develops when high pressure in the air prevents warm air below from rising.
“Thus trapping the air as if it were in a dome,” the AMS said.
According to the NOAA, heat domes occur when high-pressure atmospheric conditions combine with “influences from La Nina, creating vast areas of sweltering heat that gets trapped under the high-pressure dome.”
As heat domes are pushed over land, they can cause heat waves.
A bomb cyclone, also known as bombogenesis, is a rapidly intensifying storm.
Meteorologists use millibars – units of air pressure in the metric system – to measure atmospheric pressure.
According to the NOAA, bombogenesis occurs when a “midlatitude cyclone” rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars in the span of 24 hours.
The agency said this happens when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, “such as air over warm ocean waters.”
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
A group of demonstrators were kicked out of the legislature after a second NDP motion calling for unanimous consent to reverse a ban on the keffiyeh failed to pass.
The RCMP says it has uncovered a plot by two men in Montreal to sell Chinese drones and military equipment to Libya illegally.
The U.S. Justice Department announced a US$138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
A 35-year-old man wanted in connection with the murder of Toronto resident 29-year-old Sharmar Powell-Flowers nine months ago has topped the list of the BOLO program’s 25 most wanted fugitives across Canada, police announced Tuesday.
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.