A strange yet oddly familiar sound awoke me early one morning a couple of weeks ago.
Why was our guest taking a shower at 3:13 a.m.? Wait, no, she’d left the afternoon before.
Was the automatic sprinkler system for the veggie patch running? It wasn’t programmed to.
I heard running water, but why was it running at that time?
As the fog of sleep cleared, I realized the sound was of rain running through the eavestrough and downspout outside the bedroom window.
The momentary mystery was solved. And another took its place to keep me pondering instead of going back to sleep like any sensible person would at that time of day.
Why was the sound of rain not instantly recognizable?
It’s not as if we haven’t had rain in Victoria these last couple of months, even if the amounts and frequency have been less than usual. In all of April, only 29 millimetres fell at the university, compared to the 37 mm average. In March, about 20 per cent less fell than normal.
Overall, sa国际传媒 has experienced persistently low rain and snowfall through the last couple of years. The winter’s average snowpack was lower than ever recorded, affecting ski hills. In mid-May, it averaged only 66 per cent across sa国际传媒 and 46 per cent here on the Island. Rivers throughout sa国际传媒 are running narrow and shallow once again.
Vancouver Island measures merely “level 2 – adverse effects unlikely” on the sa国际传媒 government drought map. Three small fires were burning on the Island in early May. In 2023, the Island saw 281 wildfires all year.
In contrast, the Cariboo and northeastern sa国际传媒 are dealing with drought levels 4 and 5 with adverse effects likely and certain.
More than 100 wildfires survived the winter from last year’s record-breaking fire season. By the start of May, the province reported dozens of new fires, including the 123-hectare Parker Lake fire that forced Fort Nelson’s entire community of about 4,700 out of their homes and damaged 10 structures, including four dwellings.
The scale and intensity of the fires in the province so early in the season is concerning.
According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, a European Union Earth observation program that tracks and reports on information related to air pollution and health, solar energy and greenhouse gases around the world, sa国际传媒’s total estimated carbon emissions from wildfires in the first half of May amounted to about 15 megatonnes.
Of that, the sa国际传媒 fires accounted for over 12 megatonnes. Wildfire emissions in British Columbia for the first two weeks of May were more than double those from May 2023, the previous highest recorded amounts, and sa国际传媒’s total emissions were also among the highest of the past 22 years.
Much of the south Island’s rain for May fell on the 21st — the day of my early-morning befuddlement — and 22nd. When that soggy system moved east, it brought a welcome reprieve to the fire-riddled Interior, reducing fire activity.
However, despite the temporary relief, forests remain susceptible. A 2021 provincial strategic threat analysis found that 45 per cent of public land in the province is ranked at high or extreme threat of wildfire. The tally will only have worsened with the multi-year precipitation deficit most of the province has endured these past 2.5 years.
Drought-stricken sa国际传媒 needs more than a couple of weeks of cool temperatures and rainy days. We don’t want so much rain all at once that floods occur — as happened with the November 2021 atmospheric river.
Nor do we want a rain-fed profusion of spring and early summer grasses and undergrowth to dry out and act as tinder for fires, as happened in 2017, the first summer in a series where wildfire smoke clouded Victoria’s skies and streets.
A month of widespread, persistent and slow rain would help if it were followed by alternating wet-dry weeks.
Rainwater running through gutters, eavestroughs and downspouts should be a regular occurrence.
The sound of it happening should not be so unusual that it wakes us in the wee hours and makes us wonder, “Where’s that coming from?”
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