Goodbye summer….tonight’s forecast from the government weather website:
Winds will ease this evening however even stronger winds are forecast for Sunday evening when gusts could approach 100 km/h.
This is a warning that potentially damaging winds are expected or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..listen for updated statements.
A strong early season cold front crossed the South Coast late this afternoon accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds. In its wake heavy showers and gusty winds will gradually ease this evening.
A second storm is expected to impact the South Coast Sunday evening. The associated low pressure centre is forecast to make landfall along Central Vancouver Island in the evening. While there remains some uncertainty in the precise track, storms with this trajectory have resulted in significant wind damage in the past.
The current forecast indicates that strong southeast winds of 60 to 80 km/h ahead of the low will shift to very strong westerlies with gusts approaching 100 km/h in its wake.
We’ve already had 5 mm of rain (about 2″) today…the farmer’s market next to my work was a sad, sodden sight – about 3 customers, and very few vendors. On the plus side, one of the vendors was a young trio selling chanterelle mushrooms, a rare delicacy only around this time of year (and in this kind of weather) – I bought a couple of pounds, and we sautéed half in butter tonight for supper with bread and salad. Oh my…
The pigs are not crazy about rain, it turns out. They go out to do their necessary business, but otherwise spend rainy days snoozing in their straw. I think they’re like small kids, though – not getting out for exercise makes them a bit cranky. Good thing there are windfall apples galore in this kind of weather – definitely cheers them up. The hens seemed to be divided into two – the wet group and the dry group – which equates to the adventurous, find ways through the fence group, and the meek, stay out of trouble group. All were on the roosts early tonight. The field across the road is full of seagulls, a sure sign that wind is coming – they come inshore before storms. I’m not sure a wide open 50 acre field is the best place to hunker down in a windstorm, but it probably beats the raging surf down at the shore.
I’ve propped pallets against all the barn doors, shut the chicken house windows, put buckets away, brought in the wind chimes and generally battened down all the hatches. We will just have to cross our fingers about the barn roof. When I was about 10, we had winds like this from the north (in the spring though) and my playhouse, made out of 8 sheets of 4 x 8 1/2″ plywood, was blown head over heels from one side of the yard to the other. It stayed intact, except for a gaping hole in one corner – and subsequently became an ersatz tool shed for a few years, complete with gingham curtains at the windows.
This is the weather to be thankful I’m no longer in the Navy, where battening down hatches is a whole nother thing, and instead can be grateful that this is the weather for a good book or two, a purring cat and a hot mug of tea. If only the purring cat was dry…
Sailors Small Farm 