Drought
We counted every hour of every day that it did not rain. We had moved to Stage 3 Water Restrictions last Monday. I heard this Niveau Trois news on Radio-Canada French news, while in a ferry queue. Never in all the time I’ve lived here, have I been so acutely aware of the lack of rain, need for rain, and the drought, that was also accompanied by a mad volume of forest fires that torched our province and Saskatchewan during June and July. (More fires in June alone than the entire fire season of 2014)
So, not unlike Kennedy’s death for Americans, I know exactly where I was when this much desired rain started. I was here. 5 paces from this sea, indoors.
And this what what I was doing when the rain fell.
Muggy drought
We are in, not a weather episode or event, but perhaps have entered a whole new weather dimension. It’s a bit early to tell, but warmer sea temperatures in the Eastern Pacific are, apparently, from what I have read, creating it. We are living what I am calling Muggy Drought. In June we had 14 drops of rain and the temperature was and is hot. Hot by our standards.
For the first two weeks of the month, it was that reassuring azure blue sky that hints at itself each spring and firms her presence and stakes the overhead canopy for summer. For me, it’s an annual demarcation. There she is. That absolute azure. Welcome home! This is our weather. But this June, weeks later, with no sign of any typical moisture, you cannot help but marvel at this protracted azure, yet she’s not the absolute azure. Because the absolute azure takes the odd nap up there and allows for more intermission and mingle. I recall this from my time at the community garden, where your day would be measured by the need and pressure to water the seeds. A day with rain due would mean, phew, I don’t have to water this once.
I’ve been meaning to track this particular system, which has now become, in my mind, perhaps prematurely, a worrying way of weather life we may have to adjust to. It certainly does look that way this summer. The evenings have been quite lovely with very exciting cloud activity, perhaps to meander around staring up at.
Two days ago a detectable change. Humidity. Worse. Humidity is so uncomfortable. Humidity does not suit us. We are not and do not have air conditioning. Air conditioning is such a drain on electrical resources. We do have forest fires. Already fires are burning in Prince George. There have been 123 fires since April 1 in the Yukon. Last year throughout the entire year there were only 23. There are presently 80 fires burning.
While we have the privilege of pondering the possible implications or hints at what this new hot, humid, moisture-less weather may mean for us if it continues, Pakistan has been suffering the most oppressive and vicious heat wave that has taken the lives of 1200 people. The descriptions of the temperatures are horrific, 43 degrees celsius.
The BBC report contained the following: “They say low air pressure, high humidity and an unusually absent wind played key roles in making the heat unbearable but they do not know why such conditions prevailed at this time of the year.”
You can read the whole report, which notes 2000-3000 deaths in India also, here
Feb weather-strange
Strange February. Strange Feb weather. East they have been sunk by snow piles while West, here we are, today anyway, sunny while leaning towards gloves. It has been worryingly mild. Today il fait du soleil. There have been plentiful and visible stars and a visit from Mars and Venus last Friday evening.
Two women with binoculars strapped to their eyes alerted me to the crescent moon with Mars and Venus on a visible day release. I’m grateful to them. It was bleary though my bi-focals, but Venus seemed pyramid shaped. The two women naturally insisted when complimented “We are only out here because we saw it on the news” but I fear they were too modest given they had binoculars and were easily able to identify the planets.
Sometimes your unknown neighbours can be so very favourable.
The Polar Invasion
This weather event, henceforth localized to the “the blood will drain out of your feet” weather event has been termed the Polar Invasion in the US. (the successor to last year’s Polar Vortex)
Colorado perished last night and the Texas Panhandle recorded a temperature of -10.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean there was localized flooding in Ireland with the yellow alert being raised to an Orange alert.
Here we have -2 for an overnight low, dipping to -5 in the mysterious titled sheltered areas. (Definition forthcoming)
Here’s the full forecast. I am too timid to click on Edmonton, so click amongst yourself if your fingers aren’t already frozen.
10cm event
I’m late to the weather station to disclose the 10 cm snow event. This was the second snowfall of the season to my memory. The first snow event was the icing sugar event. This weather event will forever be memorable because it blew the fuse on my windscreen wipers. Remarkably that is the second time this month I have blown my window wiper fuse. This has been a perplexing year for window wipers in my guard.
The arrival of this snow (now turned to rain) event was carefully observed by my team of weather watching compadres. Each of whom has a district, not unlike the electoral districts in the city. Each watcher reports on sightings and the start of the event, which we collectively anticipate. It’s much FUN. As the main weather-wonderer who calls all the weather-watchers to their stations (ie your flat window) I took to the streets to do a reconnaissance since none of us could determine whether the snow had started or not. I decided to go jogging and find out. Thus I witnessed the very start of it. A suspicious rain start which became small grains of snow by the time I realized my wind-pipe was appalled at what I was asking of it, at this late hour of night, in such freezing temperatures.
I woke at 5am as I usually do if there’s weather action and convened with the thick and settled snow. The snow shovels began at around 5.30 or nearer to 6am. The birds were on strike.
The forecast was for the snow to turn to rain around 10am, but it hung on for much longer. I had an Ernest Shackleton expedition to the off licence on foot and on bus to two friends who were jointly birthday-ing. Half way there I contemplated abandoning the mission except I had bought Prossecco and was certain I’d land on my arse if I attempted to turn back and climb the hill home. Better to arrive at destination with bottle intact, than retreat and offer the best Italian to the pavement. The house I visited had an under-stairs cupboard, which I appreciated. Since living in an apartment one isn’t privy to such. Technically I have a coat closet, but there’s something that doesn’t quite feel stooped and under-the-stairs enough about it.
Obviously our snow event is a minor freckle compared to what I saw in Ottawa recently; Likewise we could learn from their snow ploughs, orange tractors and salting trucks. However each weather event is worthy of a nod or notice. You do not need to be the tallest woman in the world to have good feet. The mystery of whether the snow had begun amongst our weather watchers was entertainment up there and beyond Netflix.
In this regard, I think we have the best vantage point for snow in this country. Its arrival provokes curiosity and it buggers off before we are mentally buried by it.
Icing sugar weather event
We are coming to the close of the icing sugar weather event, where snow dusted us. This follows our freeze your phalanges off 5 day retreat. It was very mild mannered snow. The temperature is due to rise from tomorrow onwards. Thus our arctic pause may be over.
It’s never over in Antarctica, where following our lead in some sort of reverb/feedback ping of arctic inflow from us, they recorded the lowest temperature ever -93.2 C yesterday.
Despite this news I still want to be reincarnated as a penguin (if anyone is filling out the order forms there in reincarnation headquarters.)
You can never say enough about the weather …
140 miles pr hr winds hit England and Ireland this week. East Anglia saw a sea-surge that tipped houses into the sea (or should that be dragged houses into the sea?). The images are astonishing. This story on the BBC also caught my ear: a lifeboat station in Norfolk was pulled into the sea in the surge. Lifeboats being precisely that which rescues people from the sea, being thus swallowed up by the sea prior to any rescuing is very strange and leaves one with the question: what remains?
I remain perplexed as to why the weather is not THE story each and every day. Increasingly, this season there are more and more of these storms. India, The Philippines, Cuba, England, Scotland & more.
Mushroom lines
After the rains of Saturday and the rains of Sunday, we have a testament to the mega-mm that fell. Today I glanced at the grass beside the pavement and thought I saw smashed up apple. A closer peek it was a line of mushrooms, a regiment of mushies popped up out of the trampoline damp. I must now take my eyes hence and try, at a less inconvenient hour, to understand more about the spontaneous cultivation of mushrooms. They are everywhere out there on the grass.
Part 2: Footstep storm
Subsequent to the Horse Hoof Weather Event yesterday I was forced to declare the promised wind speeds a bust. We declared them a bust at 8.04pm. There were closer to 33 km/h than 90 km/h and we were not ungrateful for that. In anticipation of the big 9-0 I took my hoofs down to the community garden and chopped down all the forest-high fennel that would not have survived one gust at that speed. Alfie Cyril and his brother Darwin (cochons d’Inde/guinea pigs/cavy creatures) upstairs think it’s Christmas since they received an enormous amount of fennel for supper. The garden was flooded and this was before the latter part of the storm.
Today a second system is scheduled to arrive with 100km/h winds. We can estimate they’ll be closer to 35 km/h based on yesterday. However this is the trouble with us, we then get battered by unsuspecting storm as we did back in 2006. I have revised this weather event to a more appropriate name than Horse Hoof, she’s now Footstep Weather Event. Will she, won’t she? The hesitant boxer?
Yesterday was a wonderful collective effort on the weather watching front, we had reports from Victoria and Nanaimo that gave us wind of what was on the way. I think the federal government should pop me in an out of commission lighthouse and I’ll podcast poetic interpretations on the weather to the nation. I would though want a postal service, which may not suit them.
What’s your weather doing?
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I have several reviews from the UK of Malarky to catch up on. Am behind. But ahead of the storm! And the country always relies on its novelists and poets in the matter of weather. We have your back. (and ears)
Breaking news: Horse Hoof storm happening
We are having our first megawatty storm of the season. I have christened her the Horse Hoof weather event and have my provincial weather watchers reporting in on Facebook. (Our lovely Victoria-based friend Anu is ahead of us in the storm, so she tells us what is on the way) Horse Hoof just landed the most extraordinary rain: gutters filled and gutters spilled like I’ve never seen them. The sound was most percussive and final 100 yard furlong-esque.
At 6am she, Horse Hoof, was proffering only splashy asphalt rain and the very very odd single gust of wind.
Winds of 90 kph are promised this afternoon and evening. I will keep watching.
You can never say enough about the weather, says I. Happy Saturday to you all.
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