Early September snowfall : (

This is definitely not what most people wanted to see yesterday, 8 September 2014! An early snowfall that left something like 5" of snow. I was so relieved that I didn't have to go anywhere, as I would imagine the roads were not good. We must have had something like 4 months without snow this year, that's all! Took this quick shot looking through one of my windows at home. Calgary is under a Snowfall Warning and the following alert for today/tonight is from the Weather Network:

"Snowfall, with total amounts of 10 to 15 cm is expected. Another round of snow is expected to develop over southwestern Alberta tonight as an upper disturbance moves in from British Columbia. Accumulations of 10 to 15 centimetres of snow are expected with the system, although local amounts over 20 centimetres are possible over higher terrain. The snowfall will taper off Wednesday afternoon as the system moves south out of the province."

By the way, the small tree in the foreground is one of about six that have appeared from nowhere in my garden. Can anyone tell from the leaves what species of tree this is? They all need to be removed - can't believe how fast they grow!

Later: the estimate given on the News this evening is that about 5,000 trees in the city have been damaged (some badly, of course). The main cause is that all the trees still have all their leaves, so the snow couldn't fall between the branches. There were power outages in parts of the city - I've been lucky, so far. Will probably get 5-10 cm of further snow tonight, so the roads will be really bad tomorrow. I have a volunteer shift, so have no choice but to go part way across the city. Fortunately, a lot of this first snowfall has now fallen off the trees, so tonight's snow will not be added to the first snow. Chris, from Friends of Fish Creek Park, added in an e-mail to me today that on the News, they said that "the last time we had snow like this on this date was 1921." Interesting! Temperature today has been 2C - far from summer warmth!!