Oolite Bulletins

Wildeblood wrote:

Whereas in Aussie if you say feet or inches to a teenager you just get a blank look back. They're completely mystified as to why the person they are conversing with has suddenly started emitting Martian words mid-sentence.

Yup I come across that a lot.

Wether to bother the weather?
First thought was a Billy Connolly saying "No such thing as bad weather.. Just bad clothing"
I grew up in Scotland, Anything above 12C was T shirt weather. Now in Oz where I've seen the roads literaly melt.
Any weather above blood temp requires more consideration than below zero.

Totaly get the mixed units of measurment. I was in primary school when UK went decimal on the money. Another 20 or so years before milk was in ml instead of pints then some more years for petrol to go metric. Not been back since 1994, Is beer still in pints?
Funny enough here in Oz you can now buy your beer in pints instead of midis or jugs, going retro?

p.s. Huntress, hope your exams are/went great for you.

Once again it is summer, and I now reside in Carman which has heat records of 51 C. Yes. Fun. But so far it hasn't been too hot. No, the reason I'm posting once again is because it's my favorite season: thunderstorm time. So far we've had about two thunderstorms, but they either happened when I was locked in a windowless room for classes or at night time when I was asleep. Which is making me excited for these next two days. The temperature is supposed to be mid-twenties, and the Dew point is supposed to be 21. My favorite doomsday weatherman has been going on about how we're going to have severe thunderstorms, torrential downpours, the end of the world, etc... So I'm hoping to get at least one good thunderstorm. Just not a tornado. No, thanks. The other day it was only 20 or so, and apparently we got cold core funnel clouds. Scary and it's just the beginning of June. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.

Like hot, hate cold, love storms!

I am not fond of the climate where I live, which is about the same as southern Manitoba. My Mother used to say, "They should have let the Indians keep it." By that she meant the Native American tribes that lived here. But they, being nomadic for the most part, were forced to find a more tolerable location during the winter months or face death by starvation or worse.

The main ingredients that produce this climate are: 1) The western mountains aligned north to south from Alaska to Mexico, effectively blocking the moderating influence of the Pacific, and 2) The broad ass end of North America stuck far above the Arctic Circle. The result: Long, bitterly cold winters and short hot summers. By cold I mean temperatures that you good people in the UK and most of Europe have never experienced. Imagine, if you will, having to go outside to feed your livestock and the thermometer reads -30 C. And the wind is howling so that no matter how well you dress the cold cuts into you like a knife.

The UK and northwest Europe would be much colder if the Gulf Stream turned itself off (London is 51°N). I'd describe southern England's climate as a long spring followed by a long autumn - we don't really do winter and summer. Not what I call summer, anyway - I once lived in Córdoba, which has serious summers.

CaptSolo wrote:

Imagine, if you will, having to go outside to feed your livestock and the thermometer reads -30 C.

Bloody hell! What livestock do you keep outside in that, tauntauns?

Smivs wrote:

CaptSolo wrote:

Imagine, if you will, having to go outside to feed your livestock and the thermometer reads -30 C.

Bloody hell! What livestock do you keep outside in that, tauntauns?

During the coldest periods the livestock are kept inside barns, the top level of which holds a winters supply of fodder. This has the added benefit of providing a layer of insulation (and a fun place for kids to play). Combined with body heat from the animals the temperature inside is quite tolerable.

Smivs wrote:

CaptSolo wrote:

Imagine, if you will, having to go outside to feed your livestock and the thermometer reads -30 C.

Bloody hell! What livestock do you keep outside in that, tauntauns?

Oh dear Lord; I collapsed laughing at that one.

As of October, I just got back to nice, snug and comfy Southern Ontario after 10 years on a work contract in Northern Alberta and man - you can keep it, weather-wise. And wildfire-wise. And cost-wise. And culture-wise...and common sense-wise...and housing-wise...and redneck-wise...
OK, if you're up there on a work contract, Northern Alberta sucks rocks. Lovely place, and I'm sure it's great to live there but...wow.

It always got me whenever I flew south to Edmonton for R&R that the city can never seem to figure out winter. I mean, they get totally whammo'd by ice and -40C every year and they can never seem to figure out they need to get the snowplows rolling. The news is constantly filled with city complaints saying 'we were unprepared and are trying to locate equipment to rent'. Driving down city streets with 10 foot high windrows is tons of fun too. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, about the metric/Imperial thing: it's largely age-related; at my age I'm pretty much half/half between the systems, especially in casual life (I'm 6'4", 215lbs, 2 kilometers from the highway, it's 15C outside right now...that sort of thing). When I'm flying it's strictly Imperial, when I'm working on machinery it's strictly metric, unless said machinery was made either in the US or America North (Alberta). It's always interesting to meet European pilots who fly metric and train kids who've never seen a 1/2" wrench before. (The pilots make a much easier conversion, BTW.)

I don't mind metric much myself, but I always have to convert snowfall amounts and rain into metric. I mean please, why is rain measured in mm? Wow, it rained a couple of drops so now we got 5 mm of rain. Whoop de doo. And snowfall- unless I have a ruler I can't really keep track of cm so I jsut convert to inches.

Anyways, there was a HUGE thunderstorm in SW Manitoba last night with a potential tornado warning. I went outside for a bit and it got really cloudy and dark, then it cleared off. My mom watched the news and this morning, guess what? Those little bitty clouds was what was left of the storm. It rained itself out, apparently. We also had a small storm last night but it was 3 a.m., so not really what I wanted. However, I just walked to school now and it's like a sauna out there.

I always wanted to visit the Amazon, but with expenses, boa constrictors, piranhas, poisonous frogs, everything else..... I just can't go. But now I can be in the Amazon free of charge! All I have to do is... get this, step outside!

Perhaps we'll have some thunderstorms today... but I'm starting to get really frustrated with Mother Nature. Where are my thunderstorms during the day?!?!?!?!?!?!

Huntress wrote:

Perhaps we'll have some thunderstorms today... but I'm starting to get really frustrated with Mother Nature. Where are my thunderstorms during the day?!?!?!?!?!?!

Is Carmen nice and open ground? I don't know much about Manitoba; just the bit of the Trans Canada that passes through Winnipeg enroute to Kenora. But NOTHING beats a thunderstorm on the prairies; we used to sit out with lawn-chairs and a beer cooler and watch those huge black giants crackle with violet white power - staggering! (And much nicer than being caught aloft by one of them things too, trust me on this.) If so you're lucky; it's a lightshow few get to appreciate.

Yup, almost prairie... kind of. The land is pretty flat so there's a lot of crops, but there are quite a few windbreaks and farms that have a whole lot of trees. However, if you drive about 10 miles (or 16 kilometers) west you end up in the hills. Mind you, they're not very high but they're high enough to give thunderstorms some lift. Mind you, I don't really know how many thunderstorms come from the west. I'm pretty sure they only come from the south or the north here.

I've been pretty much everywhere in the southern half of Manitoba except for Kenora and that area It's really amazing though to see how the landscape changes so easily. I've been to Minnedosa (not Minnesota) and there they have HUGE hills covered with pine trees. By Brandon it's hilly as well, but hilly as in rolling hills. Most of southern Manitoba is filled with crops and the occasional small forest. And in the Interlake you have grasslands and forest.

No, I really miss living by the lake. We were a mile from it and whenever a thunderstorm came it was beautiful. All you had to do was look at the lake and wait for the lightning to hit the water. Can't really do much of that in town where buildings get in the way, but luckily we have a two-story so I can watch from upstairs... if we ever do get a storm!

Many years ago when I was just a lad, my fishing fanatic Uncle took me - along with his family - to Dauphin, Manitoba. On the way we traveled through Riding Mountain National Park. Such a beautiful park, the kind we do not have in North Dakota, that we made a tradition to stop every year for a days recreation. O Canada!