The Calm Before The Storm

I live in Nova Scotia, Canada – in a tidy little city called Halifax. Its pretty far north. Usually we are well out of range of hurricanes, but every now and then one decides to pay us a visit. In September 2003, well before I moved here, hurricane Juan made landfall on an rather unsuspecting Halifax with winds reaching 105 mph (165 km/h). It was the biggest storm Atlantic Canada had seen in over 100 years, causing several fatalities and millions in damage. The effects can still be seen in many provincial parks in the form of once proud fallen trees by the thousands.

Typically the waters off of Nova Scotia are very cold. So cold in fact, that its rare to see more then a handful of swimmers in the water at the beach on any given day. This week has been abnormally warm and I’ve witnessed more swimmers in the water here then ever before. While thats sounds finer and dandy, its also a recipe for disaster as far as hurricanes are concerned.

Its pretty calm and cool outside right now, but in about five hours we expect the hurricane to hit the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Most predictions anticipate that the storm will be downgraded from a hurricane by the time it reaches us, but only time will tell for sure.

HOLEY GUATEMOLE!

This is not a photoshop! A huge sinkhole opened up in Guatemala consuming a three story building and house. This thing is massive! One person reported missing.

A sinkhole is a natural depression caused by the removal of underground soil by water. Usually, it happens when the substrate is formed by limestone, carbonate rock, salt beds or any other rock that is easily eroded by water streams. The process could be slow, but sometimes the land just cracks open without notice. In this case, it happened suddenly, swallowing an entire house. The cause: Massive underground water torrents created by tropical storm Agatha.

A sinkhole created by tropical storm Agatha covers a street intersection in dowtown of Guatemala City on Sunday, May 30, 2010. Torrential rains brought by the first tropical storm of the 2010 season pounded Central America and southern Mexico, triggering deadly landslides.(AP Photo/STR)

via Gizmodo

Fishing Has Been Canceled Due to Rain

This morning I woke up at 4am to go fishing with Fishermens Fleet, however it rained quite a bit last night and some of the roads were flooded. It wasn’t as bad as Mondays storm, seeing as my house wasn’t all flooded, but it certainly didn’t look good for fishing.

Hoping it would all blow over, I hopped in my car and drove downtown. There were quite a few times where I thought for sure I was going to flood my car and be stranded in a few feet of water, but my tactic of driving extra fast through the rivers that used to be streets worked. Though it left me quite wet, I have to admit it was very satisfying.

When I arrived at Fishermens Fleet, I touched base with David and it was decided that we were still fishing. I had my fill of coffee, exchanged a few fishing stories with other fishermen and jumped in the van. As we got closer to Punta Arenas, where we launch the boats, it became increasingly apparent that the storm was much more intense than I thought and lightning could still be seen flashing behind the mountains. When we arrived at dirt road that takes us out to the beach, you could see a long line of vans and trucks parked and a large group of people standing around. The captains were all standing together in a group talking and examining the washed out road. Wondering if we could even make it the rest of the way to the beach, and more importantly would we be able to get back. It was eventually decided that we had to at least try.

The drive to the beach was slow and extremely wet with large portions of the road completely underwater. We eventually made it to the beach, but nothing but dark clouds could be seen on the horizon. There was to be no fishing today, canceled due to weather, an unfortunate set of events but there was nothing we could do about it.

It turns out that a tropical storm off the coast had upgraded to a full blown hurricane this morning and was looking like it would make landfall around Sunday. Hurricane Otis is being compared to a huge storm that happened 29 years ago, and there are now talks of evacuating Los Cabos and turning off the electrical grid to prevent injuries and fires.

I really hope my house doesn’t flood!