May 22 - 2022 - Derecho in the Neighbourhood

 

I didn't know the word Derecho until it became a severe weather warning on our radios yesterday.  It made me point the car home. A derecho (pronounced similar to "deh-REY-cho") is a widespread, long-lived straight-line wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving severe showers or thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system. High wind speeds, hurricanes and tornado-force winds are common in these storms.  No wonder we got the big alerts yesterday.  Most of the big derechos in the past have occurred in the U.S. Derechos can be hazardous to aviation due to embedded microbursts, downbursts, and downburst clusters.  Generally "bursts" are a big part of the storms. I guess we've been very lucky in Ontario in the past where our worst worries are too much snow and ice in the winter.   The storm yesterday was reported to have almost 1000 km of damage from Michigan to Quebec City. There were 4 reported fatalities - mostly by trees falling.  At one point the winds reached 132 km/h at the Kitchener airport.   The worst derecho in history was in June 2012 where the winds reached 146 km/h and tracked across a large section of the Midwestern US into the mid-Atlantic states. There was $2.9 billion in damage and 22 deaths. It went on for more than a day. That storm is described in Wikipedia HERE.  May is supposed to be reserved for flowers - particularly the lilac festivals. We salute the arrival of summer on the Victoria long weekend with public and private fireworks.   Public Fireworks are back on this year.  This Niagara Falls Summer Fireworks says:  "Fireworks every night" - that's the headline.  Summer has arrived! Gerry and I were in Toronto on Niagara Street last week for a Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University) lighting certificate graduate anniversary get-together.  It took place at a lighting store.  You can see the front door to the left in the first picture, and the lighting sculpture on the wall.  The lighting sculptures were wonderful. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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April 21 2021 Spring Flowers

 

It was a cold day yesterday, but that wasn't the concern.  It was the predicted snow fall overnight and today.  The probability is that the spring blossom show will be interrupted and diminished.   So I went to Niagara Street, in St. Catharines, to the fabulous weeping Cherry tree and the ancient Magnolias out front.  All in perfect bloom.  There were orchards starting to bloom along the route, so we'll see what the results are today. April's average snowfall is between 1 to 3 days.  And there have been big snow storms in late April.  This snowfall forecast is 10 to 15 cm - so while substantial enough and perhaps exasperating in a COVID year, it doesn't fall into the record range. Here's one from 1976 in Orangeville north of Toronto: "If you think the cold weather we’ve been getting lately (2018) is bad, this would have been even more annoying for Dufferin County residents preparing for spring back in 1976. This "From the past" feature traces back to a two-day stretch from April 24 to 25 in 1976, when Old Man Winter blanketed the Orangeville area with more than 20 cm of snow.  Although 10 cm of snow fell on April 23, 1963, the snowfall event succeeding it 13 years later goes down as “the granddaddy of them all,” explained Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips." Here's a substantial moment in Hamilton: on April 9, 1979, when 29.2 centimetres of snow fell on Hamilton.  I think that was reported by David Phillips, as well.  He was Canada's Chief Meteorologist for many years.  He's listed in the Government of Canada contact site so he must still work there - he's 76 years old. Let's see how the day and week unfold weatherwise.  I wonder what David Phillips would say, with his many decades of experience and knowledge. Here are a few pictures of the tree  - you can see the changing light caused by the lake effect clouds. Sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, gloomy - all in the space of an hour.   Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca