Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Crazy weather in southwestern BC and beyond

For weeks during this hot dry summer, large swathes of the interior of BC, Alberta and the northwestern US were covered by a pall of forest fire smoke.

The picture on the left shows what Barriere looked like on August 24 when I passed through.

Today I came back over the same road. I was relieved to see that last weekend's recent heavy rainstorms had washed the sky clean (below).

While I was away, the Lower Mainland had rain with gale-force winds that broke down branches and uprooted drought-weakened trees. Large trees fell, damaging houses and crushing cars.

The good news is that the plants are delighted with the long-awaited moisture. In our garden the fall crocus is coming on beautifully.

At Valemount and Jasper, snow has already fallen on the mountaintops.We hope this augurs a normal snow cover for the coming winter, reducing the risk of drought next year.




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