Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fall from Hell

Okay, so once in awhile something comes along and it seems to form a pattern and just won't go away.  That's what seems to be happening to the Central Coast and the Bella Coola Valley this year.  Just like we had a four month stretch of weather from June 1 to Aug 31 where we just couldn't get rid of the good summer weather (total precipitation of 107.4 mm or 4.2 inches in 4 months).  It seems like the later part of September and October are going to be just the opposite.  Parts of the Bella Coola Valley are again threatened by high water as a result of the rains that have mostly been hitting the outer Central Coast for the last two days, but last night slipped east enough to catch the lower 40 kms of the valley.  By noon today the side creeks which still have very high fresh bed load from the September Great Flood of 2010 and can't take a lot of water were getting high.  Remedial action is needed to deal with the fresh bed load - but the appropriate agencies just haven't had time and man power to get to that as they have been busy restoring public access so people and goods can move freely again.  Up until noon today we had about 40 mm of rain in the last 12 hours, but unfortunately the freezing level I spoke about in yesterday's post has gone up and some of that early snow came down which really pops the levels of water up in creeks like Nusatsum, Thorsen, Klonnik and Snootli Creeks quite quickly.  This evening it has slowed down and hopefully we stayed below the critical level in most places. 
Bella Coola River at noon
I've been watching the super Typhoon Megi on typhoon tracking websites.  It's an immense tropical storm with the highest winds recorded in the world this season.  It went through the Philippines yesterday and China tomorrow.  It was the tail end of another typhoon that hit the Central Coast in the September flood, so I've been paying more attention to what they do.  Many seem to trail off and track more northerly into Alaska as remnant rainstorms but not always apparently.  This satellite image from the University of Wisconsin, Madison gives you a really good look at it and the track of weather that carries east across the Pacific.  Tropical cyclones blow north and then eastward as they leave the warm waters of the tropics.  For now it's just more of the same in never dull for weather Bella Coola Valley.  Grizzly

1 comment:

  1. Hang in there, Griz, we sure could use some of that rain down here in the desert SW in the USA. My thoughts are with you, love your blog.

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