Big wind

it's another stormy day here on the wet west coast - but it's an odd kind of storm, at least where I've been today. I've been from my house down on the beach, up to the city core one mile away, and then back down to my place.

This morning, it was absolutely pouring down rain when I left home, the drops were so big the rain was bouncing back up off the street to hit my knees. But the minute I got off the beach where I live, and up a couple of blocks to the city core, the rain - and the wind (what little there was of it) - died down. It rained on and off all day, but it didn't feel serious, at least not near my office.

I left work at 5:00, no rain, no wind, not really, but all over the city (except downtown) there were foot high puddles, trees crashing, mudslides, power out, thunder and lightning, highways closed, people evacuated, ferry trips cancelled. Then I went to dinner downtown - still no rain, no wind, no evidence of the BIG STORM.

When I got home - down by the beach again and a total of maybe one mile from downtown - the wind was blowing gale force speeds, the waves were gobbling up the beach, and tossing the boats around until I'm sure some of them were damaged. Okay, what gives?

There is something about the downtown core of Vancouver that seems extremely well protected from all kinds of storms. I can remember 30 years ago, when we still had real snow storms in Vancouver, several winters when I couldn't get home to the suburbs - but there was very little snow downtown. It's protected I think because it's a mile of the west coast so it misses the big winds, it's warmed by the buildings so it misses the snow, it's in the center of a zone of safety. Weird, huh?

Kate