My dad bought us a rain gauge a few years ago. I think he was tired of getting non-answers whenever he asked how much it rained at our place. For farmers, you see, this is a critical piece of information. After every rainfall, the conversation inevitably leads to how much rain you received.
"Gerald, yeah, he got four tenths of an inch. But Trevor, well, he only got two tenths – poor guy. And that was after the hail." These two farmers live one mile apart.
We do it in the city, too, but not to the same extent. "You got rain up in the north? Huh! We got nothing in the south end." Notice the lack of reference to any form of measurement. This would drive my dad up the wall. If you got rain, you have to say how much. When I tell him we maybe got a quarter inch, when really I have no idea, he loses all faith in his urbanized son. Hence the rain gauge. It sits crooked in our garden beneath an elm tree.
As a child I remember the central role the rain gauge played in our lives. We would run to it immediately after every rainfall. It was vital to follow the correct procedures: Always read it at eye-level, never forget to dump it after the first read, and record your measurements in the family log (actually I don't think we had one, although I'm sure my dad kept a record).
Wherever we live, we attune ourselves to the weather to suit our needs. In the city, it's about when it rains as opposed to how much it rains. If it's on the weekend, everyone complains bitterly the following Monday morning. If it's during work hours, we'll tolerate it.
I bike to work in the summer months, so the weather is even more critical to my survival. Wind speed and direction, in particular, is vital information.
Once again, I am beckoned back to the days on the farm when we would look to our trusty windmill to see which way the wind was coming from. Dad could decipher weather patterns simply by monitoring the change in wind direction.
Now we're much more technologically advanced. The Internet opened up new doors, leading the way to a revolutionary wonder called weather radar. For farmers, it was like discovering insulin. No longer would they be in the dark, depending on some monotone voice reporting the chance of rain over the two-way radio. Today you can determine the extent and power of any oncoming storm. It's addictive. Even my daughter has gotten into it.
"Check the radar!" she commands as soon as she sees dark clouds. Albeit this has more do with a fear of storms than a general interest in meteorological phenomena.
To calm her fears, I try not to talk too much about the tornado that destroyed Regina in 1912. Yet somehow it keeps coming up in conversation. "Boy was that storm big," I might say. "But still nothing like the storm of 1912. Do you know it destroyed nearly every major building in Regina?"
For some reason she doesn't appreciate this reference to our historical past.
I know that as a father I should really be more sympathetic. I was there, after all, when her fears began. It was 2014. We had just departed Drumheller to go to Calgary. As we travelled down a desolate rural road we noticed a dark wall of clouds approaching us. The tumbling cascade of grey and white clouds looked like rain with a slight chance of tornado.
It ended up being a hailstorm like I've never experienced. Normally, this is nothing to worry about, except when you're in a vehicle the incessant pounding on the roof makes it sound like you might just die.
"It must've hailed a quarter inch," I told my dad. Quite a storm, but still nothing like the tornado of 1912.
 |
| My handy rain gauge |
No comments:
Post a Comment