Weather 2011

[deesen]

.....my computer "fixed", Photo Shop has disappeared and I have no way of resizing them.  Maybe Mark can tell me another way to do it?

Irfanview (FREE to download, and safe to download) comes with a re-sizing tool that is very easy to use. I use nothing else.

[cohan]

It has continued generally rainy and cool here--our share of the heatwave affecting large parts of North America was about 3 days in the mid-20sC last week (one day high 20's) always with cool nights still, and most of those days had one to several heavy downpours from thunderstorms;
Edmonton (quite a distance north, but the closest tv news/weather that we get-we don't get Calgary stations, just as far south) had 11 days without rain since the beginning of June, as of a couple of days ago, and we have had at least as many rain days, starting actually in late May.. Friday our high was something like 11C(51F) and there have been lows just above freezing--frost warning last night.. back up to 24Cish today and tomorrow, then cooler again, possibility of rain 5 out of next 7 days....
Nothing devastating here though, some areas in the province have declared agricultural disasters due to rain flooding fields, but here its just parts of many fields wet... if we don't get any dry stretches though, crops will be very slow to ripen and it will be impossible to harvest hay etc...
Wildflowers generally are loving it, with more bloom on many species, and blooming plants showing in large colonies and or scattered in places I hadn't seen them before--eg--semi/dry coniferous woods have a lot more things flowering in this wet year, and I am seeing huge numbers of Zigadenus elegans in roadsides--which is educational: I think the plants are fairly drought tolerant, based on some locations I have seen them, however, this massive wet year flowering tells me that they truly 'tolerate' drought rather than favour it...(and in fact, its been wet for at least 4 out of the last 5 years-so lots of opportunities for many plants to germinate, as well..

[Howey]

Thanks for the tip, David.  I have downloaded this program and look forward to working with it.
Cohan - yes, Zigadenus elegans seems to be pretty tough - not a spectacular flower but ANYTHING flowering in my garden now is doubly welcome.  Quite amazing how the lawn has suddenly gone from gold to green with this sudden rainfall - must be the corn gluten ferilizer??  Fran

Frances Howey
London, Ontario, Canada
Zone 5b

[Lori S.]

Ah, the charms of living near the mountains... getting to a trailhead in 45 minutes is great; the downside is turbulent weather!  

Here's the aftermath of a late hail-storm (they occur more usually through July) in the early evening.  It was the biggest hail we have seen in the yard in the last few years, up to about marble-size.  (We have got off lucky... there has been lots of much larger hail elsewhere in the city and environs).

         

What's really strange about the weather here is that it doesn't even have to be a hot day for hail clouds to develop.  It was actually very cool today, ~15 deg C... and, of course, dropped further to about 4 deg C as the ice came down!

Our yard is pretty hail-proof (all perennials, and resilient) but folks with lots of annuals (and bigger hail) might be hard-hit this late in the season.  Oh well, that's gardening here in "hail-storm alley".

Tufa garden under ice... (cleared area behind is future extension thereof):

[Lori S.]

And at about 10:30 this morning, there was still a sheet of ice on the ground - even in the sun in some places!!  Amazing, considering it was 5 deg C overnight and given the warmth of the soil.  
 


Update:  A local neighborhood weather station recorded a low of 2.9 deg C, +0.1 deg C with windchill... which better explains why there was still ice on the ground in the morning!   

[McDonough]

Wow Lori, shocking to see frozen stuff on the ground in August! We've had such a long and hot summer, I'm ready for a cooling trend.  Was 88 F (31 C) yesterday, not super hot but hot & humid enough, seems like the daily temps are always in the upper 80s, supposed to be the same high 88 F temperature today with high humidity. I'm looking forward to a night where we don't have every window wide open and a half dozen fans running, and can actually sleep using a sheet or light blanket for cover... I'm so looking forward to autumn.  Until then, I'll just have to look at your plant travels in the high mountains of Alberta.

[Hoy]

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .Although hail is not uncommon in summer I have not seen it this season. The temperature here at our summerhouse today was 22C, not bad as the "hottest" day this summer was about 26C. It is 17C in the sea and tomorrow I intend to take a morning bath

[deesen]

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .

Sounds like a Devon August!

[Hoy]

Can't say I am looking forward to the autumn weather! That usually means rain and more rain. . . .

Sounds like a Devon August!

Should wish it lasted only August and not 9 months

[McDonough]

Late summer, and invariably there are Hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic.  So, Hurricane Irene approaches, with the current projected path taking it directly through New England and Massachusetts.  Of course, by the time it hits inland, it'll probably be weakened to a Tropical Storm, however latest projections still call for torrential rains and winds up to 80 miles per hour, which is still a major concern.  Tomorrow, I'll button down the hatches, and secure all movable objects such a deck chairs, BBQ Grill, and other such stuff.

The red dot shows where I am located:

[Hoy]

Hope you don't get hit too hard, Mark! Seems I'll be hit too - in a couple of weeks

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/hurricanes/#!/2011/Irene?smid=tw-nytimes

[McDonough]

Hope you don't get hit too hard, Mark! Seems I'll be hit too - in a couple of weeks

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/hurricanes/#!/2011/Irene?smid=tw-nytimes

Cool link Trond!

[RickR]

Good luck to all in Irene's path! 

You coastal and near coastal dwellers have all the fun 

[Spiegel]

Mark, did you fare OK with Irene?  I'm in Chicago babysitting grandchildren so missed everything.  My son reported that the barn was flooded and water was running over the driveway but everything else was OK and we have power.  That's remarkable.  It used to be that 4 minutes of rain was equal to 4 hours power failure on our place.  He didn't check the garden, so who knows?  I've seen the pictures of the flooding in the Catskills and it's unbelievable.  Hope everything is OK with you.

[McDonough]

It was uneventful here, only lost power for about 3 seconds, enough to make our computers and cable tv reboot 

Lots of rain and wind, downed limbs and such.  People in some towns lost power for a day or so.  The eye of the storm went further west of us than first predicted, tracking up New York State and towards Vermont, one of the quickest hurricane/tropical storm events in memory.