winter

“…and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!”

‘King Lear’ – William Shakespeare

The first serious storm of the season ripped its way across the southern end of Vancouver Island yesterday afternoon – tearing dead wood and fresh young fronds alike from the trees, decimating the power grid and scattering bins and other appurtenances to the four corners of the earth…

It certainly seemed that way!

We lost a number of large branches from the trees that border our garden and our power was out for a little over five hours – fortunately being restored at around 5 pm just as it got dark (which it does here later than in the south of England at this time of year).

We were lucky that we got off lightly. The BC Hydro (our power provider) website shows that – 24 hours later – the southern end of the island is still subject to 256 outages affecting 33,777 customers. Our friends in Saanichton did not get their power back until midnight – by which time they were already fast asleep!

Reports suggest that the storm was quite the worst seen in the area for some seven to eight years. Tragically, one person was killed by a falling tree. BC Ferries cancelled 130 sailings on 14 routes and the ferry dock on Penelakut Island was severely damaged. On the mainland a man had to be rescued by helicopter after becoming stranded when the wooden pier at White Rock was broken in two by boats that had been torn from their moorings.

It is the norm in this neck of the woods for the winter storms to start – and indeed to be at their most severe – during November. That did not happen this year (November being particularly mild) which may well be yet another sign of the world’s weather systems being seriously out of kilter.

Bizarrely, however much damage did result the winds proved insufficient to blow away some of the less attractive inflatable Christmas decorations which ‘grace’ front gardens in this part of the peninsula!

Make of that what you will…

wild and woolly

Definitions

a. rough, untamed, barbarous
b. (of theories, plans, etc) not thought out

At the top of the New Year it feels as though the weather here in Victoria is determined to blow away utterly any echo of the year that has recently stumbled to a close. The winds over the past few days have truly been ‘rough, untamed and barbarous‘ (not to mention that they add a significant chill factor of anything from -6°C to something considerably worse) and show no signs of abating anytime soon; indeed the half a gale that is blowing as I write is supposed to go the whole hog later tonight.

The sea has taken on a mean look. Protected by the Gulf Islands the Haro Strait never sees more than mild whitecaps but this belies the ferocity with which the winds can whip across its surface.

Though the land temperature merely hovers around zero the wind chill rapidly dissuades one from spending much time outside.

It is at such times that we are grateful to live in a well insulated house equipped with a heat pump, the which does an excellent job of maintaining the internal temperature at a most pleasant 70°C. With our new gas log fire we can face down the external conditions and remain toasty warm inside whilst watching the elements raging outwith our picture windows.

For those unfamiliar with such things the trick – incidentally – with heat pumps (which work in a manner similar to air-conditioning) is to maintain as close as is possible the same temperature at all times. It is considerably more efficient (and cost effective) to run the system constantly than to allow the temperature to drop and for the hear pump then to have to struggle to raise it again. Though this may seem counter-intuitive to those who are familiar with the sort of central heating systems more commonly found in the UK, one rapidly gets used to the idea.