Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Grey Light

It was a pretty decent day in Bella Coola.  A lot of leftover cloud from yesterday, but a few bright periods later in the day produced some nice light and brief glimpses of the mountain peaks just when the light was too low to get a good picture of the accumulating snow pack on the mountains.


Today's photo is looking downstream on the Nusatsum River from Highway 20.  You can see fresh log jams in the distance and newly scoured channel.  It's a big tributary to the Bella Coola River and can get pretty wild when it wants to. 

Environment Canada is being persistent with the forecast for cold weather and 50-70 km/h winds, which I'm pretty sure I mentioned are very unpleasant.  A question was asked yesterday what the coldest temperatures in Bella Coola are like.  The coldest recorded temperature was -28.9 C on January 15, 1950.  "Normal" cold though is -15 C, a few bumps down to -20 and every 1o or 20 years a drop below -20 C.  But there is a big variation from the end of North Bentinck Arm where the coastal influence is strongest to the eastern end of the valley at Stuie BC where it can regularly be much colder.  The lower 40 km of the valley are almost always subject to extreme Arctic outflow winds during these events as well.  Even hardened prairie folks who have seen it all, will eventually admit the -20 C, 70-100 km/h outflow and damp, dense air at sea level is really special.  Grizzly

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