As I type this I can hear the rain outside. But I am inside and the windows are closed. I should not be able to hear the rain, especially with my lab-certified terrible hearing. And yet I can hear the drops plinking madly off the polished stones in the garden outside my window.
Earlier this afternoon, I went for a walk and got caught in a very localized monsoon. I sought cover under a pine and noted that just beyond this small stand of trees, the sun was shining. I felt like Charlie Brown.
This is what it looked like as I waited and watched:
Once the mini-monsoon moved on, the rest of the afternoon was actually decent. There was a rainbow and everything was swell. Until tonight, when The Rains began anew.
Yesterday, shortly after leaving Iona Beach, where Nic and I were looking for birbs to shoot (with our cameras), a funnel cloud briefly formed over the water and there is now some question over whether an actual tornado landed at UBC as a result. You can see footage showing at least four trees coming down at the golf course there in the video below. It looks very tornado-like. And is a good reminder to not seek shelter under a tree in extremely high winds.
There is another wind warning in effect for tomorrow.
On the one hand, winter is approaching, and it can get blustery around here, so this is not really unusual (save for the possible tornado, which is still a pretty rare thing for this area), but it just somehow feels different, like the minute hand on the big global warming clock (I just made that up) has ticked ahead again. What this means for when actual winter starts next month, I’m not sure, but I feel bad for all the future ex-trees that get knocked down in the storms to come–or anyone who gets knocked down by said future ex-trees.
