Weather...always a surprise.

I left for an appointment the other afternoon, looked out over the yard, facing east, and enjoyed a moment of sunshine and blue skies. It was a surprise when I turned the corner and saw the black, threatening clouds and no sun to the north. As I made my way to the car it was as if I had walked into a shadow world, yet only a short distance away there had been sunshine.

I’ve seen this unusual phenomenon before. Driving home from a lunch with my brother, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw ominous dark skies in the west and thought that he was heading into a storm, where I had clear skies going east. The storm that day moved in my direction as I went through rain at one point, then hit dry roads and back into the rain in a very short distance. How strange that in the same neighbourhood, some houses would get rain and others not.

It’s like the lake effect for snow. If you watch the TV news from Buffalo, see their Doppler reports, you see how the snow is heavier on the south side of Lake Ontario. I’ve always been glad I lived on the north shores. But if you travel north from here, there is another lake. Rice Lake is not as big as Ontario, but is still large enough to affect the weather. On a drive north, (a distance of 45 Km) to the city where we frequently go to shop, it can be like passing through different time zones.

In winter, with a prediction of clear weather, we’d head out, going north to shop. At the eastern end of Rice Lake we might hit a snow storm, that at times has been bad enough to have me turn around and go back home. The skies ahead were a pale gray and looked to me to be full of snow, and I just knew they were waiting to dump a pile of the white stuff on me if I continued on my journey. Sometimes I’d battle ahead and drive through the storm and hit clear roads.

April was an interesting month, not so spring like as we had snow, but true to itself with the “April showers bring May flowers” description of old. But if May is going to bring flowers, the weather had better warm up some more. It’s still cool, and when it rains that dampness just adds to the chill.

It doesn’t matter what the weather, it’s always a ‘hot’ topic for discussion. When will the snow end, the rain was fierce, the cold…too cold and for too long. When it warms up we’ll complain about our allergies kicking in when it’s time to cut the grass, that it’s too hot, that we need rain for the gardens, you get the picture.

We love to complain about the weather, and it always gives us something to talk about.