Strange, strange weather.

A recurring theme for those posts that have covered the work done during the summer of 2011 has been the extended periods of above average temperatures that really made everything just that much more of a challenge. Well, the heat was really only a fraction of the story. As I looked back over some of the photos I have from last summer, it occurred to me that last summer's weather was a bit of a story in itself.

A somewhat soggy June gave way to a dry July. Raging forest fires further north that forced the evacuation of numerous First Nations communities sent a pall of smoke to obscure this sunrise. After a week of breathing in this smoke, the wind finally turned and gave us some relief.

Last summer was hot and dry. Dry enough that the region was under a fire ban with the forest fire danger level at "extreme" all summer. When it did rain, it rained as a deluge - the "male rain" that washes away and does not soak into the soil. Nowhere was the "female rain" that slowly soaks the forest floor. These torrential rainfall events were few and far between but were nearly always associated with spectacular thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are not uncommon in the summer here but what set the storms of 2011 apart was their intensity.

This photo was taken shortly after the passage of a storm that went on to tear part of the roof off of the terminal building at the Thunder Bay airport, causing damage to a number of parked vehicles. Those pillowy clouds are called mammatus and are commonly associated with the cumulonimbus of severe thunder storms.

One of the most interesting weather events of 2011 occurred once the summer had passed, well past the time when such events are normally finished for the year. September started in normal fashion with frosty mornings and cool days. I was enjoying the return to more normal weather, but by mid-September it became unseasonably warm again. One such day, as I was getting ready to install the top plates on the main floor walls, the wind shifted and the sky darkened. Soon I could hear the rumblings of thunder in the distance and it wasn't long after that storm cells could be seen passing by both north and south - but there was no rain. What happened next caught me off guard. The sky became overcast with a low orange-brown fume that rolled over the hills and it grew strangely dark in the early afternoon. The embedded storm cells were letting loose their purple hued lightning through the overcast and it started to rain - ash! It took a few minutes to realize what was happening but soon there was soot accumulating on the subfloor and drifting into the corners. Upon closer inspection, there were charred pine and fir needles - even whole poplar leaves that had been blackened and were brittle to touch. I got a bit nervous thinking that the dry lightning had set fire to the forest somewhere nearby so I called the MNR's fire reporting line, then dialed 911 to report the fire locally. It wasn't long before the overcast that I had noticed earlier descended further and it became obvious that it was smoke from a forest fire - once you've smelled it, you can't mistake the smell of a forest fire. I stopped my work and went and picked up my son Peter who was at the babysitter's down the road. While I was there, I learned from Ed (who had the scanner in his truck tuned to the emergency frequency) that there was no fire locally and that the smoke and ash was coming from a fire that was burning outside Ely Minnesota about 80 miles away. While it was a relief that my community wasn't threatened by fire, the smoke was almost suffocating. Luckily it wasn't long after that the storm finally broke with a deluge of rain and the wind shifted to take the smoke somewhere else.

Storm cells passing overhead. Not-so-unusual in July or August, but midway through September?

The strange overcast descends while the light of the early afternoon sun shines through underneath to the south giving the scene a sort of silvery fantasy novel look. I half expected to see a horde of orcs come pouring over the hills from the direction of the fume.

The house project under a shower of charred biomass. Notice the little solar light that turned itself on.

The storm broke, the rain washed everything clean and the wind blew away the stench. It was just another abnormally warm evening in September.

Apocalyptic Modified Blues - Corb Lund