60.5 in the rain

Normally, I don't bike in the rain.

This is not to say I leap off the bike and hide in the trees should rain start while I am out - in fact, I have ridden my cyclocross bike down a MUP in water so deep that the front wheel was setting up a pretty serious bow wave and have scared myself silly in a massive thunderstorm with hail that I got caught in while mtn biking - but I do not like leaving the house all warm and dry while it is raining out. Snow does not bother me, the more the better in fact, but the rain?

It seems somehow wrong.

Today was different.

Today, I went out and wandered about the city to the tune of 60.5km in the rain. It rained the whole time. At times, it was raining fairly heavily, and at times it was more of a gentle mist.

It was wonderful.

I did the same thing yesterday as well.

While out, I took some pictures.

This was the only storm damage I could find on my usual rounds on the bike. And I was looking. A massive willow tree lost about 1/5th of its trunk. Power was still out in some parts of the city yesterday, but mostly, things here were back to normal. We are quite far inland and did not get hit that hard.

We did get some seriously cool looking skies though as the tail end of the hurricane blew over. I wish I had had the time to spend just sitting and photographing the sky. It was amazing.

Water levels at Columbia Lake were very high. This is in part due to the storm, but mostly is due to the fact that it has been raining for almost three weeks now with only a few days off. Columbia Lake is not a real lake - it is part of the water management system created by the Grand River Conservation Authority and helps regulate the level of Laurel Creek which feeds into the river. Normally, the culvert these ducks are sitting on is about 3/4 to 4/5 exposed.

My usual path to my usual bird watching spot was under water. Again, while this has happened in the past, it usually does not happen in the autumn. Usually, it is like this after the spring melt.

If you know the lake, and most of you reading this won't, you know that this spot here is the spot where the creek feeds the lake. Normally, it is possible to easily wade across to the exposed clay bar picture left. Not right now though.  The creek is about four times as wide as normal, and at least two feet deeper with more current.

One big benefit of all the rain though has to be the beauty of the City's wood lots. This one is about 2km from our house, and is a very pretty spot. It makes a good shortcut on the way home depending on where I am coming from. Today, I found an excuse to go through it and pause to look around.

I am glad I did.

sandy amongst us

Today Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the Eastern Seaboard of North America. I won't go into a lot of what makes this hurricane significant from a meteorological point of view, but will instead let my thoughts and prayers extend to those who have been and continue to be affected by this storm.

Here, far inland like we are, not much is going on (yet). The satellite image (GOES Eastern Canada) looks like this around 10pm.

It has not really reached us yet.

Around town, we have been very fortunate so far, to my knowledge at this time. Power was knocked out for some of the city, but crews were able to restore power fairly quickly. Leaves are everywhere, and some light weight branches have been knocked down - that is all I observed while I was out at a meeting tonight. Winds are gusting to 67kmph at the local airport, but are expected to reach 90kmph (higher in exposed areas).

Otherwise, it seems business as usual.

We shall see what the morning brings.