Weather

Its said that the British have an obsession with weather, its true, we do. There's a good reason for it, the British weather is incredibly varied. In Scotland its often said, if you don't like the weather, wait around a while.

When I was growing up, when the summer holiday came round we hoped with all our might for a good summer. A good summer constituted a week or more of good weather where there would be sunshine for at least 5 days in a row and a temperature of around 20C. It didn't happen often, most weeks would have rain showers or whole days of rain. If you were really lucky the temperature might hit 25C.

After the poor summer, the wet and windy autumn would always follow, rain for days at a time, winds growing to 80 or 90mph in gale force storms (relatively common in Scotland), months of this weather would roll by and eventually winter would set in.

In Scotland you'd expect winter to be a cold snowy affair, really low temperatures and ice storms, hah we wish. Winter in Scotland tends to be a let down if you like the cold weather, Christmas time is almost never snowy, which ruins every child's holidays. When it does snow, which some years is almost never, the snow is pretty light and when its heavy enough to settle and accumulate, it barely gets to more than a couple of inches deep. Then the snow might last a few days, a week at most, then it'll rain and bye bye snow.

There's a scientific reason for all this, its called the Gulf Stream in particular the North Atlantic part. This is a current of warm water that flows from North Africa, via the Caribbean region of the Atlantic Ocean, it splits into the North Atlantic Drift and the rest recirculates to Africa. This warm water current has a huge effect on the British Isles raising the winter temperatures by a sizeable amount, e.g. the average low temperature in Moscow for the month of January is -10.5C, in Glasgow its 1C (I use these 2 cities because in latitude they are almost identical, 55 45 N for Moscow and 55 50N for Glasgow). This also effects summer temperatures, in July its 23.4C average for Moscow and 18C for Glasgow. The reason the temperature is lower in summer is thanks to the warm water, more clouds are formed and consequently more rain, that ever present rain.

The Gulf Stream does effect more than the British Isles, it actually keeps most of the western coast of Northern Europe warmer than it should be and if the Gulf Stream was ever to shut down, North Western Europe would descend into a mini ice age, or less dramatically, it would become a hell of a lot colder, more like the rest of Northern Europe in winter, like the Baltic for example.

Also thanks to how far North the British Isles are, we are affected by the Arctic. Especially in winter, Arctic winds come down over Europe dropping the region into a deep freeze, causing chaos in the warmer countries. These rare hard freezes can give us snow but mostly ice and cause problems on the roads.

With this in mind, at least you now understand where I came from in terms of changeable, hard to predict weather that will constantly spoil your day and once in a while play nice and give you a happy surprise.

The weather in Canada was a real surprise to me. My first time over was in July 2007. It wasn't the warmest of summers and the average temperature was around 25C. It hardly rained and there wasn't much in the way of wind either. It was pretty damn idyllic for me, especially compared to the weather I'd left behind in the UK, temperatures barely hitting 20C and rain every other day. I was over for 3 weeks and had a great time and went home with a bit of a tan (compared to the usual). I came back in October and the weather was once again much better than the UK. I'd left rain, cold, wind and storms behind and come to average temperatures in the high teens, shorts and t-shirt weather.

As the months went on, the weather started to cool down, by December the temperature had dropped to -5C or so and there was a hint of snow in the air. My first experience of Canadian snow was on the way to Ottawa for a friend's birthday on December 2nd. We were driving up the 401 to Toronto to pick up a friend and the first of the snow for that winter, in South West Ontario, had started to fall. As we headed out of Toronto the snow kept falling, but it wasn't overly worrying, still quite light, however a couple of hours later, around the time we were nearing Kingston the snow was falling steadily, the roads were becoming covered and the plows were out in force. For the most part on the 401 we managed to avoid the plows and enjoy the fruits of their labour i.e. clear roads, but when we left the 401 to take the 416 that all changed.

The snow was getting deep, very deep by my personal experience. The plows were working extra hard and we were caught behind them a couple of times following at 40km/h for 5km or so at a time until the plows peeled off to head back down the highway to clear the other side. It took us an extra couple of hours on the 416 than usual and we saw 5 or 6 cars abandoned by the side of the highway and even a couple of trucks. One in particular had jackknifed and blocked the other side of the highway causing a tailback for a good 5 km. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) had done a good job redirecting traffic though so that they avoided that area of the highway bu I'm sure a few people's days were ruined. We got to Ottawa safely and although the snow was deep it was well tended by the authorities.

On the way home, the snow had started to melt and this caused some problems too, our car's windscreen washer fluid level was low (not that we knew at the time) and for a good 50km as we neared Toronto I was driving with an almost ice covered screen with barely a slit of clear glass to watch the road. We did manage to find some fluid at a service stop but it was the 4th place we'd tried, turns out hundreds of other drivers had suffered the same fate. However by the time we reach Toronto the weather had warmed significantly, enough that it was raining and the snow was cleared from most of the land.

By mid December the snow had returned, a little to start with but still a good amount. This froze after a couple of days, making walking difficult in places where the snow hadn't been cleared properly but I managed not to fall at least. As the winter went on we went through a few fluctuations, for most of December and January there were periods of snow, freeze and thaw, at one point it was even 8 or 9C. Late in January however and through February and March the snow started to hang around, getting deep and freezing hard. It was the most snow I'd experienced for a long period of time and it took a little getting used to. Walking Blackie at -32C (the coldest of the year) was pretty interesting and we both agreed to make it short. Walking at -20C wasn't so bad and his fur, which is crazy warm, kept him pretty happy, although he did manage to tear a claw during one walk which made him pretty sore and grumpy for a week until he gnawed the claw off.

Winter was pretty fantastic for me, I'd not had that kind of winter experience in my life and its something we Brits tend to love.

I'll talk about Summer in a later post as we're still in the middle of my first full summer in Canada, however I'll tell you this, its so much better than the UK summer, hot days, strong sunshine, very little in the way of rain or inclement weather apart from a few storms.

About me

I was told that I should probably introduce myself for those of you whom I already said I hope won't know me. So here goes.

I was born in 1972 in Jaffa Israel to a half Scottish, half Lithuanian father and an Italian Jewish mother. The story which lead to my parents being in Israel prior to my birth is a nicely convoluted one which was mostly to do with World War 2. Not that uncommon for "baby boomers" to use a North American term.

On my father's side his story was due to the British Empire, as was prior to WW2. His father was an officer in the British Army (Scot's Guards) and his mother was a nurse in the British Army by way of the Empire troops. From what I know of their story they already had met and fallen in love before the war, but the war split them up for a number of years, as it did for many military couples, but after the was they got together, were married and my father was born in Glasgow in 1946. My grandfather died young, when my father was 13 and his mother decided to go to Israel to be with her family when he was 15, he stayed in Scotland until his schooling was complete and then he followed her to Israel where he fell into Israeli life. In the 60s my father went through life in the Army, like thousands of other Israelis every year to this day (Israel has a policy of National Service, every man/woman over the age of 18 apart from the orthodox Jews who don't even recognise Israel (look it up)) he also travelled around Europe and the USA, taking jobs as widespread as long distance truck driver, commercial scuba diver and latterly in Israel, BOAC travel agent.

On my mother's side her family's story is a little more clouded in mystery, however her family are from southern Italy, from the saffardic jewish community. Her father was a trader in goods from Libya and other parts of north Africa and her mother was a housewife. When the fascist dictator Benito Musolini came to power in Italy and later allied with Hitler's Nazis, the jews in Italy and Libya (then an Italian colony) fled the country and headed to other parts of the world, mostly europe, my mother's family headed to Israel via Libya. My mother was by all accounts born in a cave outside Tripoli in 1944 and her family reached Israel by 1946 where they went through the birth of the nation of Israel (previously known as Palestine). Her childhood was pretty normal for Israel at that time in history, her family first lived in a tent, then an iron shack and finally a house (far from uncommon). She also went through National Service and later became a legal secretary.

Their lives didn't cross until 1970 although both had been involved in the six day war in 1967, at the time my father was in the Paratroops and was part of the force that dropped into Jerusalem and captured the city for the Jewish state. My mother was an aide in a front line artillery unit. They first met when my father moved into the apartment above my mother's family and they developed a love that lasted until my father's death in 1999. They married on December 13th 1971 and I was born on October 20th 1972. Just before my first birthday, my father, like many other men and women in Israel was called to arms as the Yom Kippur war broke out on the 6th October 1973. He did not return for 8 months as his unit at the time, part of a tank army, was stationed on the west bank of the Suez Canal. When he returned, I had grown considerably and did not recognise my father (I've been told) partly due to time apart and partly due to his huge bushy red beard (something I inherited from him). This experience changed my father greatly, he was no longer a young man with no responsibilities as he had been for the six day war, he now had a wife and child whom he loved and cared for greatly so he suggested to my mother that they leave Israel and move to the UK, ultimately Scotland. She agreed and by 1976 we were in the UK (on side note, my father, not long before the yom kippur war, was approached by the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, to join, due to his appearance, accent and service record, but due to his new marriage and child, he declined).

From 1976 I lived in the UK with my parents, we lived in Linwood, Scotland, for 4 years and moved to Houston, Scotland, where my parents lived for the next 19 and 25 years respectively. I lived with my parents for 23 years and moved out to my own place in Paisley, Scotland, where I lived for 11 years before falling in love with a Canadian girl and deciding to make then move to south western Ontario to be with her.

In my time I've studied many things, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, computer science (all at university level), a number of languages, French (at high school), Spanish and German (at university) and i learned Hebrew as a child from my parents' talk (they spoke Hebrew and English in the UK almost 50/50). My most recent field of study was Stained Glass Production Techniques, which I studied in North Glasgow College in Scotland. Those were 3 of my most productive years (artistically) and I found I had a great aptitude for glasswork.

I still keep myself well versed in modern science, I subscribe to New Scientist magazine, and I listen to a couple of science and tech podcasts (from Guardian Newspapers).

I guess that's most of what went on in my life, I guess I glossed over a few things, like my father's long term illness and other things around his later years of life, but those are for another time I feel.