There are times when we have too much weather. Intense weather — wind, rain, hail and lightning. Much of it personal, aimed directly at me.
For instance, years ago I was playing golf on a Regina course commonly known as Boggy Creek. (An odd name because there was neither bog, nor creek, nor water of any kind near it.) It was flat with rock-hard fairways and open to the weather and, sure enough, on the back nine a Prairie storm roared in with black clouds riven with lightning. Scary.
My partner and I would have sheltered under a tree except, this being the outskirts of Regina, there were none. Indeed, the two of us were the tallest objects in sight. So we dropped our clubs (perfect lightning rods) and stepped away from them. The storm got worse so we lay down on the ground as the thunder roared and we were pelted for five minutes with hail the size of golf balls — well, the size of peas, in truth. The wall of rain passed over, the clouds scudded off to the east and the sun came out and dried us in about 10 minutes.
It makes a good story, but when that storm rolled in I felt like a bug on a plate.
Then there was the bout of weather that came my way 10 or 11 years ago at my cottage in Ontario. It was a sweltering day in July, temperature around 40° Celsius, humidity 100%, the sky a curious yellow. I went to bed that night hoping the weather would break. But it didn’t just break, it shattered.
Some time around midnight I was awakened by a passing train. (Odd, that, as the closest rail line was 80 km away. Then the train began a high-pitched scream. It was the wind, of course, accompanied by rain and hail the size of golf balls. Well, marbles.)
Frankly, I was terrified.
It was one of a series of tornadoes that swept through cottage country. It wiped out the power and the phones and dropped any number of trees. Luckily, the only one to land on my roof was small. (Small, for an oak, that is.) When it was over, it turned out I was just on the fringe of a tornado; two km to the north it looked as if God had taken a lawn mower to the forest.
As you can see, I scare easily. A few years before that storm, I was at another cottage by myself when the sky turned yellow and purple, and the wind started to rise. The cottage had a partial basement and I went down there to join the mice. Wind and rain passed by outside and the storm was over quickly. I felt foolish when I emerged to a calm, misty July evening. Then I saw five uprooted large birches next door.
That’s when I decided my best summer storm policy was to either go to bed (head under the pillow) or hide in the basement.
By now I have made preparations for what has become tornado season in Ontario. (Whatever happened to the summer weather of my childhood?) We live in a house on a hill and storms approach from all directions. The good thing — and the bad — is I can see them coming. So when nature strikes, the dogs and I go down to the deepest part of the basement — a cold room with a steel door — and sit there drinking bottled water and eating dog biscuits. (The dogs, of course, not me; I have an emergency ration of potato chips.)
When I think the storm is over because the dogs have stopped whining, we cautiously come out. I consider it a good experience if the roof is still on the house. But I’ve gone out into the woods after some of these wind storms and found trees snapped in two or ripped from the ground. That’s a lot of power.
So if you are looking for me in the coming season of storms (and they are coming as sure as the globe is warming up), knock on the basement door.
And please bring some more potato chips and a bottle of water. IE
Hail to the summer storm season
Time to restock the basement shelter with dog biscuits, potato chips and bottled water
- By: Paul Rush
- June 2, 2006 October 29, 2019
- 11:27
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