Rain to give away.....

SASE not needed.

As a prairie girl living in one of the driest areas in Canada I never thought I'd say this but boy oh boy am I tired of solid near black skies. Now I know interior BC doesn't want it, the foothills of Alberta sure doesn't nor does most of the East.


C'mmon Mother send it to the States (for a couple of weeks).

This video was done as a joke (who'd a thunk our rivers could actually handle one of those ships).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Lj9Zmir79bs

:P http://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/NCOMAGWEB/appcontroller?prevPage=Model&MainPage=index&image=&page=Param&cycle=06%2F08%2F2012+00UTC&rname=PRECIP+PARMS&pname=precip_p03&pdesc=&model=GFS&area=NAMER&cat=MODEL+GUIDANCE&fcast=5+Day+Loop&areaDesc=North+America+-+US+Canada+and+northern+Mexico&prevArea=NAMER&currKey=model&returnToModel=&imageSize=M

Nope, nope, don't want it girlie. Got my own grey clouds rolling in today. Which reminds me, I need a new cap for my rain barrel so I can save some of this water for the wannabe potager.

Hope your feet are keeping dry.....glug, glug, glug.

Thunder bay has had wayyy too much! Hope it stops soon..

M

Yeah I kinda figured you wouldn't want it Erynne. :'(

Marilynne my sincere sympathies to you folks......an awful thing to happen as I remember my city's flood of '74 well (60 city blocks here underwater and a lot of it was our business district as well as a goodly number of houses). Was your home damaged by the flooding? I'm thinking you will also understand this Albertan's frustration too well:

"Strange weather patterns
Aug 23, 2011 06:00 am

Dear Editor,

The word “monsoon” is becoming synonymous with Alberta. From south of Calgary to the northern reaches of Slave Lake, we are becoming home to monsoons that belong in the southern rain forests. Is our weather acting strange? I’d say it is. After seven months of hard winter, we bypass spring and jump straight into the monsoon season, where flooding across a region 1,200 miles long and 700 miles wide has become the norm, and where baseball- or tomato-sized hail stones barely raise the eyebrows anymore.

Here we sit watching our northern lakes dry up and shrink at alarming rates, while our highways get washed out from draining flood plains.

If they want to know where all the water is going, then they need to come to Barrhead, where we got hit with a monsoon that in 45 minutes dumped four inches of hail and three inches in rain.

The streets became fast-flowing knee-deep rivers that filled basements and stores to capacity. The lightning and thunder was a continuous roar, but was drowned out by the howling wind and the pounding of the raindrops. (It’s a place) where eight-foot by 10-foot wooden sheds floated through town like north Saskatchewan River pirates intent on stealing grain from all the local farmers. As this storm meandered across the prairies, menacing grain bins, it then turned really nasty and became a monster, dropping baseball-sized hail and vacuuming up one farm.

The end of August will bring the first frost that turns the corner into winter when all this rain will then become snow. Remember, one inch of rain becomes 10 inches of snow, and that’s just life on the prairies."


The #$@#$#@%#@ rain is falling here again. It's the third friggen Monsoon year in a row and I'm sooooo sick of it (thank God no hail here yet). It was just a couple of years ago I lost every plant to that. :(

My sincere sympathies also to those in the Southeastern corner of this province and those in Manitoba who had their houses go under last year (and I doubt they are much better off this year given the amount of nasty storms they are still having).



This message was edited Jun 9, 2012 7:15 PM

I have to tell you, after having been declared a diasaster area here inTBay and 2 of the outlying Municipalities, one of which I live in .. I for the life of me, can't understand people who say that 'there is nothing wrong with the weather systems'. As the article you posted explains .. these rains are something else.

We lost our driveway (gravel) the culvert at the end simply couldn't hold back the raging 'ditch water' .. we walked down to the end and just stared at the gaping hole .. 500 ft to the south and west of our country road corner, there was NO road, and, a police car was unfortunate enough to be travelling the road when it crumbled and it was IN the hole .. no injuries, but, a washout (actually 4 in that area) that just skeeered the bejeebers outta me ..
Ma Nature most certainly flexed her muscles BIG TIME !!! Folks in the city have had raw sewage in their basements and lost memorabilia that can never be replaced ... and .. so it goes ...

~M~

I saw that amazing pic of the police car Marilynne! :O

So happy for you that your personal losses weren't too bad (re house flooding and/or sewage damage) though I know your lack of a road would have caused some headaches.

We dropped down to +7 yesterday morn but Gillan, Manitoba had a nasty, nasty surprise (if many there are growing plants)...of course the insane amount of hail will have taken care of alot there prior to the snow falling.

Considering how the rest of the continent is doing who'd a thunk Saskatchewan would look like this......

36C here right now with a band of 'thunder boomers' headed straight for Thunder Bay .. looks like we're going to live up to our name, AND< we won't have to WATER tonight YAY !!!
Now we just have to hope for NO HAIL !!

~M~

I am in the GTorontoA and at any other time I would have prayed for no rain as we were to have a large outdoor party but as a gardener I was very happy to see all the rain we did get yesterday. It was so needed. And so the party was indoors with 25 people and kids underfoot. But now no watering for a few days and our one rain barrel is very likely full to the top.

As I type this, we have RAIN .. and .. looking at the radar for Thunder Bay, it will continue for most of the day .. the gardens are going to LOVE this .. my back is as well ^_^

Sharing a pic of this years Day Lillies, NOT eaten by the deer !!

~M~

:^)) So happy to see some rain from here headed East and took a dip instead of heading due North or straight across. I never thought I'd see the day where Southern Ontarions were getting weather that people from Saskatchewan and Alberta normally have.....drought is sooooo nasty.

Hope you have more of the slow all day showers though.....those hard quick downpours (with or without hail) aren't that desired either (I sure feel for the farmers there too).

gorgeous daylily MarilynneS btw :) This year I've got a lot of lilies that came from tiny bublets blooming & what a lovely surprise it was to see them.

Just came back in from watering my pots and discovered most didn't need it (what a change from our dry years where I could water them three times a day)....whilst I hate humidity I have noted how well my plants are growing (like weeds) and how little I have to water from high humidity alone (my city has been covered by clouds for almost 3 1/2 months straight but luckily we are only 25% above average rainfall....nearby however the rainfall is 100% over average and many towns/hamlets in SK have been flooded again this year (thank goodness for the Coteau Range hills below Moose Jaw that protect us from the worst) . We have some slumping along our highways but none this year have been totally washed out like the TransCanada was two years ago by Maple Creek (what a sight that was to see a mini Niagra Falls in Saskatchewan where our highway once was. Saw the same, again in a smaller scale by our farm that same year.......never ever did I think we'd have a water fall there.

Farmers here will be dancing a jig (as long as their crops don't get hailed out or go under). Some of our farmland went under this spring but almost 3/4's was planted so am praying the rest gets to harvest (and we do have HAIL insurance).

edited to add Saskatoon's wet related problem (neighbourhood not shown well is where a lot of professors from the University of Saskatchewan live.....so lots of gorgeous houses in trouble there) : http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/07/18/sk-saskatoon-shifting-1207.html



This message was edited Jul 18, 2012 1:16 PM

This message was edited Jul 18, 2012 10:21 PM

It certainly has been a most unpredicyable and volatile summer with regards to weather .. from floods to drought .. hail to humidity .. hmm .. guess we must live in Canada LoL

The yard in the pic in the above link sure did 'fall away' .. Had to laugh, the Delphiniums hung on LoL .. not a big fan of Delphiniums .. had a patch by my clothesline pole and inevitably got stung by a bee each summer as I hung out clothes .. so .. one fall I dug it up and laid it to rest out back in a sort of pile of flotsam and jetsom .. and .. yep .. 5 years later I have Delphiniums at the back of the property .. hardy plant that !!

~M~

Yep it sure has.....tonight Saskatchewan added maybe 3 more tornadoes to the count (~23 now...EC is slow with the confirmations out west, probably because they hit farmland in most cases so its hard for them to rate their strength).

pics courtesy of the weather network, my twitter feed and my husband's FB account. Poor Carrot River (town) and Yorkton (not shown but equally hard hit by rain a couple of days ago.


This message was edited Jul 18, 2012 9:59 PM

I think we are up to 30 tornadoes now. The rain clouds are no longer welcomed here in Saskatchewan. Saw many fields with gorgeous crops under water yesterday.

Captured this by our farm yesterday

That along with the fact that 70% of the US is in drought and I kinda think we will have very high food costs.

I am hoping there were no serious injuries with the tornadoes .. the weather is at such extremes across the country .. here in NorthWestern Ontario the hot/humid conditions are really not welcomed by many, and, of course, along with that comes the forest fires .. 70 burning as of noon today.

I keep looking at the pics of me blowing snow last Feb/March .. guess it makes me feel a titch better, but, even at that, the snowfall for 2011/12 was way below what it should have been ..

Awesome pics ..

~M~

Marilynne I'm so afraid the rains won't stop and I too have been shuddering over what food will cost very soon! Usually I'm begging the East for some rain....this year I'd give my eyeteeth to send 1/2 of the excess we've been getting to the forests there (or Northern Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba/NWT). I must admit I do wonder often now if we will be able to harvest before freeze up or will have to wait until the land is frozen solid).

No serious injuries out west yet (the farmer who lost his house and had lots of damage to his buildings/vehicles/equipment had minor cuts, etc) thankfully.

We also have smoke in the air (especially noticeable by the hill range below the farm.....not sure though if it is still from the States or Northern Alberta's fires).

I have also been eyeing winter scenes (videos here though) just too cool off.

This message was edited Jul 22, 2012 1:22 PM

I have never hated a summer as much as this one.......

Greg Johnson (tornadahunter) is all excited about his "Tornado Tuesday's" in Saskatchewan (3rd one in a row now). I wish he was out of work, re tornado chasing, a long time ago.

Newest updates from yesterday...most were screen captured from Greg Johnson's live stream

and a few more (wish I had done the whole summer this way...sure would have been a colourful thread.

4 tornadoes in total yesterday that I believe were confirmed.

Gawd!!!!!! Wonderful pics, but scary ...
We'd love some rain .. the 1/2 inch we got was sucked up pretty quickly .. back to the mid to hi 30s starting tomorrow ~~

~M~

Not quite heading the right direction for Ontario this time but maybe the storms that hit here will pick up additional moisture somewhere down there and head back up to Eastern Canada the loooooooooooooong way round?

Map is showing Friday's forecast with some of the storms that were over us earlier in the week now down in the States (the one showing in Saskatchewan that day however is supposed to be the strongest severe weather that Saskatchewan has seen this summer).

Our farm has now had over 15 inches of rain (an inch and 1/2 just a couple of days ago).

The land that was planted still hasn't flooded (it drained away the 7 inch rain it got prior to seeding however our low land is looking very wet still)

Hope this current predicted week of fun skips us all together!

Hey Pam. Nice to see you. We could use some of that rain.

32C here right now and so humid !!
Have seen a band of 'cells' coming our way from the west .. small town they just went through is about 200Km from Thunder Bay .. now, usually these storm cells push north and miss us, BUT, today the wind is FROM the north west, so, chances are we might get some much needed rain ..
Thr farmers on our country road have some crops that look AWFUL, like their silage corn .. however, the hay is bountiful, I do believe they are on their third cut.
Will leave the decisions up to good old Ma Nature .. I take it she's having an 'off year' this year !!!!

~M~

Well now, I think I MAY have offended 'Ma' !!
Have had a pretty severe TStorm pass through, with high winds and lightening, and, looks as though it's going to come through again in a bit ..
No need to worry about watering the gardens for awhile .. YAY !!
Mind you, we have a wee doggie who is none too happy with the noisy storms ..

~M~

Well I was pretty nervous about offering our rains after a certain point (the hail that some got was downright NASTY).

In the end our farm received 17 inches of rain and NO HAIL (I so wish my father had lived to see the farm these past couple of years)! Crop is now off and it was a good one. We were truly blessed this year.

With those blessings comes a reminder that others weren't so lucky.......I really hope this works out well:

Hay East will ship surplus hay to Eastern Canada
By Bruce Johnstone, Leader-Post September 12, 2012

Western farm groups are planning to resurrect a program that would see surplus hay from the Prairies shipped east to droughtstricken producers in Ontario and Quebec.

The program, called Hay East, would pay back eastern farmers who shipped hay to drought-ravaged livestock producers in the Prairies in 2002, according to an official with the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).

The official launch of Hay East is expected to be announced at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture roundtable session this evening at the federal-provincial-territorial agriculture ministers' meeting in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Producer groups from Alberta and Saskatchewan will be working with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Mennonite Disaster Services, the Quebec Farmers' Association, and organizers of the Hay West campaign of 2002 to move much-needed hay to Ontario and parts of Quebec, the APAS official said.

O FA president Mark Wales is expected to call on the federal government to provide support in the form of AgriRecovery funds to assist with transportation of hay from the Prairies.

"We clearly have a pressing need in Ontario and farmers in Western Canada are prepared to assist our livestock producers," Wales said. "Now we need the support of our federal and provincial governments, the railways, corporate partners and other stakeholders to make this effort have a real impact on the ground."

With harvest nearing the halfway mark and Thanksgiving less than a month away, APAS president Norm Hall said "it's time for all of us in the West to take a moment to think of those less fortunate than ourselves."

"In 2002, eastern farmers shipped us thousands of bales of hay to help save our herds from starvation. It's 10 years later and the time has come for us to give back to the people who helped us when we needed it."

Lynn Jacobson, president of Wild Rose Agricultural Producers, said he's confident that Prairie farmers will help out Ontario livestock producers. "The online forums are already filled with farmers and their urban cousins lining up to help with second cuts or stored hay or even cash. We have long memories here in Alberta and we're proud to be able to help."

Hay East 2012 organizers have established a website at www.hayeast2012.com to provide farmers across the country a place to register to receive hay or supply hay to the effort.

bjohnstone@leaderpost.com

Read more: http://www.leaderpost.com/East+will+...#ixzz26HJneUUh

This message was edited Sep 12, 2012 12:55 PM

Snow to give away.....3 times normal snow pack out there and it just keeps on coming (Alberta please send your clippers elsewhere). Look out Manitoba and Minot come spring!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/02/12/sk-runoff-prediction-1302.html

Yikers .. I should say the folks in southern Sask and N Dakiota are going to be in a pinch ..
Thunder Bay has had lower than normal snowfall AGAIN this year, but, we are presently in the midst of one touted to be bringing us 10-25cm over the next 24 hours ..
I guess anyone with 'Family Day' off (Monday in ON) will be busy shoveling !!!

Ahhhh Canada and her weather .. gotta luv it !!

~M~

Yep just gotta love our weather Marilyn.....seems we all get either too much or too little.

Am really hoping it will settle down and give us some weather that won't go to either extreme.

Take care shoveling that snow.....as usual we didn't get as much as what was predicted to fall here, however I know the countryside around Moose Jaw, etc. is drowning in the white stuff. My husband is really starting to hate these mild winters since he heads out on the highway everyday and they sure have been in rotten shape for quite awhile.

Well its time to get Coast Guard ships ready to sail Saskatchewan's massive rivers.
North Dakota and Manitoba will soon be reverting back to Lake Agassiz.

Regina is about to break their historical 1955/56 snowfall record as is most of this province over the next couple of weeks.

Locals are already looking at topography maps and maps of previous floods here ie 1974 (60 blocks of Moose Jaw went under) and the flood that happened in the 60's.

Praying for the longest, most protracted snow melt ever here.

Alberta please send your #$@%# Clippers to your dry/parched/about to be scorched Southern plains and then down to the States that are suffering from massive historical drought.

White flag waving here!

An interesting past week here...wildfires, flooding and snow
http://imgur.com/a/2SjOV
Not totally correct....flooding pic is in Southeast Sask and the wildfire happened just prior to the snow falling.

Flood waters are rising here (still not bad) but we've been informed an awful lot is heading this way:
http://www.discovermoosejaw.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29262&Itemid=902 http://ckom.com/story/water-security-agency-update-finds-sk-spring-runoff-slows/107990

"Of course, Wakamow Valley isn't the only area that's fighting flooding. The R.M. of Baildon, for example, had to close one of its bridges due to high water levels Tuesday night. Rick Swenson, who farms in the area, believes flooding is similar to 2011 and expects levels will continue to rise.

"There's a lot of water out here... it's quite a sight and it's headed your way," he says. :S

Montgomery and the Water Security Agency confirm this likely isn't the last of the rising water. There is another wave from Avonlea on the way and officials are prepared to handle the worst."

Other places in Saskatchewan: http://ckom.com/story/water-security-agency-update-finds-sk-spring-runoff-slows/107990


This message was edited May 1, 2013 8:39 PM

Well I think we've had enough Monsoon rains for awhile (and, for sure, so has Alberta).

Time for Canada to warm up (and get back to normal rainstorms)

I guess Ontario's rains were last spring ... we had floods here in Thunder Bay on May28-29 2012, still clean up going on as well as a bunch of stupid political stick handling courtesy of the Lieberal gov't !
Have been reading about your rains, and, also rec'd an email from a friend in Calgary who mentioned the mid slides in Canmore as well as the SWOLLEN Bow River.

Sure do hope things straighten themselves out .. perhaps Mother Nature is going through MENOPAUSE !!!!

~M~

Oh Alberta is in deep, deep, deep trouble. Highway #1 is down and will be down for a long long long time to come. Two of its bridges at Banff have been washed out like the #1 was at Maple Creek SK two years ago and almost every town in Southern Alberta will be (or is) under a State of Emergency!!!

From a Calgarian at another weather site I belong to:

"Scratch that. Lethbridge is flooding as well now. I'd say much of southern Alberta should be in an emergency situation by this afternoon.

Hwy 3 heading into the mountains will likely close later today. That will bring E-W traffic to a STANDSTILL in this part of the country. Have to drive up to Edmonton to get anywhere (I suppose #11 is possible depending on how bad this gets)."

I shall now clam up about the cool easterly breeze off Lake Superior today, and be thankful we have NO rain!!

M

CP train hooked up to CN train...sounds like the CP line is down???

"Athabasca river here in Jasper looks ok, but there is a high stream flow advisory out. I suspect Edmonton will issue low lying location advisory today or tomorrow. Judging by what i am seeing the levels will reach 12meters. Looks like CP has changed routes already. A CP engine just passed coupled to Cn engine. I thought CP would use the crowsnest now that the main line is closed.

Rail bridge in Crowsnest pass already washed out, near Blairmore. I have no idea if they have an alternate in the area."
______________

and

"A friend working at the evac centre in Canmore said she was evacuated from her home this morning, since then one of the evacuation centres has been evacuated. It is showery in Jasper today but the traffic through town is noticeably up.

Yeah, I suspect all mountain traffic is being diverted towards Jasper. 93 is pretty much closed south of Hwy 11. Really no other option but to head north.

I can't imagine how many people are trapped in campgrounds and hiking trailheads right now. We won't hear reports of that until much later, because cell coverage is non-existent between Lake Louise and Jasper."