Except it’s May. May!
Yes, the 10-day forecast for the first half of May mentions rain or showers EVERY DAY.
I mean, this is no doubt better than ten days of heat domes and will do wonders to dampen the threat of forest fires, but this is a little silly.
Maybe some day we’ll be living in some Star Trek future where we can control the weather. Until then, a boy can dream.
Actually, the weather today was pretty miserable–cooler than normal and heavy rain. But I don’t care, because it’s spring! The second-best season of the year!
Have a dancing duck to celebrate (captured on camera at Reifel Bird Sanctuary yesterday, when the weather was much more spring-like than today):
As the ancient elders Environment Canada foretold, we have indeed been bestowed with a white Christmas in 2021. It’s time for a list!
Snow good
Snow bad
And today’s evidence:
Technically, it’s still fall, but the answer is yes.
Boo.
The view outside my home office window this morning:
It’s mostly gone now, but the portent remains, ominous, white and fluffy.
Every day I either go for a run or for an exercise-style walk, by which I mean I walk for at least 30 minutes at a brisk pace, so the Apple Watch activity app registers the walking as exercise.
Today was a walk day and since we are square in the middle of a system that is endlessly pouring rain, I opted to head out late morning, just to get it over with. Waiting out the rain was not a realistic option.
But knowing it would be very wet and that I might venture to areas with massive puddles, I made a few changes to my usual outdoor wear:
Normally I’d wear my old trail running shoes and hoodie, but I felt these would not hold up.
I was half right.
The boots worked very well and kept my feet nice and dry. The only downside is I have to wear regular insoles, or they fit too tight, but for shortish treks, it’s fine.
The jacket was a weird and appalling disappointment.
The pockets got wet. And by that, I mean the indies of the pockets, meaning my hands, phone, mask and AirPods case all got damp. This was bad.
The wrists on the jacket allowed enough water ingress that I had to lock the screen of my watch to keep it from wigging out. And the hood is so big and floppy that it kept bouncing out of position, and any sudden breeze threatened to pull it completely down off my head.
The only good part is my torso stayed mostly dry.
The hoodie, in comparison, does not keep my chest and abdomen as dry when it is pouring out. I’ll end up with some lines of dampness running vertically down my t-shirt, enough that I’ll change when I get out of the rain.
But the hood itself not only keeps my head dry, it actually fits over the brim of my cap, keeping the cap dry and providing a kind of shield to keep the water away from my face. This has the added bonus of reducing rain splattering on my glasses.
And the pockets never get soaked through, so my hands stay warm and dry.
Really, it’s just weird that the jacket works so poorly, almost like the waterproofing has completely broken down.
I felt a bit silly going out as it was. No one voluntarily goes out in weather like this. I went down to Hume Park and didn’t even see some lunatic out with their dog, and there’s always some lunatic out with their dog. I did see two people riding bikes, though.
Mostly, I just want summer back. Yes, even with the occasional heat dome.
Except without the catchy tune or Annie Lennox.
I went for a walk in The Rains this afternoon and the Brunette River was on the cusp of flooding over its banks at Lower Hume Park for the second time in two weeks. Oy.
Here it is looking all swollen and such:
The view from the paved path, with water from the path flowing directly into the river. That will likely reverse overnight. The narrow gap is a short trail you can normally use to get right next to the river. Technically you still can do that, you’re just going to get a little river in your shoes at the same time.
With global warming and climate change an established thing, I have been wondering if the local climate is changing in ways that are noticeable now (rather than in 30-100 years, when predictions look a lot more dire).
This was brought on yesterday when I found my eyes involuntarily rolling upon reading another weather advisory in the Windows Weather app. They seem to be coming up more frequently. And so, just to satisfy my own curiosity in a completely unscientific manner, I am going to record the remainder of the late fall and winter advisories on a page here through the remainder of the 2021-22 season.
The first entry, from today, is below.
Nerd stuff: Since the text in the Weather pap is not normally capturable, here’s how I did it (I will find a way to streamline this process later):
Rainfall – Warning
From 11/14/2021 5:22:40 AM to 11/14/2021 9:22:40 PM
rainfall warning in effect
Total rainfall up to 100 mm for Metro Vancouver, western Fraser Valley and parts of the Sunshine Coast, and up to 150 mm for Howe Sound and the eastern Fraser Valley for today and Monday. Warm temperatures will accompany the rain.
Timespan: Today to Monday.
Locations: Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast – Gibsons to Earls Cove.
Hazard: 100 to 150 mm of rain. Rising freezing levels with melting snow giving rise to increased river flows and localised flooding.
Remarks: A significant atmospheric river event will bring copious amounts of rain and near record
temperatures to the B.C, south coast today through Monday.
The rain will be heaviest this afternoon and tonight ahead of the cold front. The heavy rain will ease on
Monday as the cold front pushes the precipitation out of the region.
The lowlands of Metro Vancouver will see up to 75 mm of rain by Monday while the North Shore, Northeast sector including Coquitlam and Maple Ridge and Fraser Valley – West including Abbotsford could see up to 100 mm. Howe Sound and central and eastern Fraser Valley including Chilliwack and Hope could see upwards of 150 mm.
This could result in possible washouts, debris flow and pooling water as rising freezing levels will also melt snow at higher elevations, Local river levels will rise and river flows will increase as a result of the heavy rain.
Heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water pooling on roads. Localized flooding in low-lying areas is possible.
Please continue to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada. To report severe weather,
send an email to BCstorm@ec.gc.ca or tweet reports using #BCStorm.
Watch for possible washouts near rivers, creeks and culverts.
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.
UPDATE: How could I have forgotten bomb cyclone? We’re in the middle of one right now!
Spoiler: not exactly fun
I learned two three new weather terms this year. Learning things is fun! Learning these terms was less fun, since they affected me in somewhat unpleasant ways.
It’s possible I’ve heard these terms before, but either forgot them or they never registered.
Here they are!
HEAT DOME
What is a heat dome? Here’s the definition from NOAA (read a more detailed explanation at the link):
A heat dome occurs when the atmosphere traps hot ocean air like a lid or cap.
We had a heat dome in late June/early July. At its peak, the temperature here in New Westminster got up to 42 degrees Celsius. As I recounted at the time, this is quite warm indeed, particularly for this area where a summer high might be nearly 20 degrees cooler. I know what a heat dome is now, but feel no better with the knowledge, as I wonder if Summer 2022 will bring more domes.
ATMOSPHERIC RIVER
NOAA also has a handy explanation of these:
Atmospheric rivers are relatively long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics. These columns of vapor move with the weather, carrying an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. When the atmospheric rivers make landfall, they often release this water vapor in the form of rain or snow.
The NOAA article talks about benefits of some atmospheric rivers, like increased snowpack, but in local context they have always meant rain and a whole lot of it. When we got one of these rivers flowing overhead recently, the Brunette River rose higher than I’d ever seen–high enough for those signs along the river trail warning about sudden changes in water flow suddenly resonating.
See the bit of river at the bottom of the photo? That’s normally not underwater. If it had gotten a little higher, the river would have started spilling out over its banks.
So far I do not like atmospheric rivers, although they do have the advantage over heat domes of not making your face feel like it’s on fire.
BOMB CYCLONE
This one I just heard about in the last few days and as I update this post early on the morning of October 25, one is hammering the south coast, leading to power outages, cancelled ferry sailings and more.
Definition from this NBC News story:
A bomb cyclone is simply a storm that intensifies very rapidly. Bomb cyclones form when air near Earth’s surface rises quickly in the atmosphere, triggering a sudden drop in barometric pressure — at least 24 millibars within 24 hours.
I love the use of the word “simply” there, as it goes on:
As the air rises, wind spirals in at the base of the storm. As long as the air continues to rise at the top of the storm faster than it can be replaced at the bottom, barometric pressure will continue to drop. As with a hurricane, lower air pressure yields a stronger storm.
Like a hurricane. No biggie! And maybe happens once a year. And we’re only a month into fall, when the window for these things is basically now through early spring. Woo.
With another heavy rainfall warning in effect, it’s hard to believe it was mere weeks ago that the whole province was kindling waiting to explode. But here we are, complaining again as The Rains resume.
And now, a haiku:
Rain, rain and more rain Contemplating ark building Umbrellas for life
I say this for two reasons:
