Vancouver in Hotumn

Ha. Here’s me, going on about our local weather. Again.

After the coldest, wettest spring I can remember, we’ve now had the hottest, driest autumn I can remember. Decades-old temperature records are dropping like flies. People are walking around in T-shirts and shorts, while still enjoying picnics on the beach and swims in English Bay.

This photo? I took it two weeks ago, at the start of our Thanksgiving weekend.

Weirdly, the leaves also seem to be slow to change colour, and those that are changing aren’t showing their usual vibrant reds and yellows. Apparently this can happen when trees are stressed because of drought: the leaves go straight from green to brown.

You read that right: drought. We’ve had no rain for more than 100 days. Metro Vancouver has asked residents to take shorter showers in addition to the usual summer water restrictions because the water reservoirs where our drinking water comes from are dangerously low.

I live in a rainforest. This is not normal.

Meteorologically speaking, what we’re experiencing is a prolonged high pressure system. A heat dome, in other words, but since the days are shorter, we’re getting temperatures in the mid-twenties instead of the high thirties.

And to think that I was moaning about how our way-too-short summer was already over at a family barbecue on Labour Day weekend. Instead, we got six more weeks of sunshine. I should feel guilty about it, since it’s all due to the climate crisis. But hey, I’ll happily take all the sunshine I can get.

Of course, we Vancouverites are never satisfied. The only thing everyone has been talking about for the past few days is this weekend’s forecast. It promises rain.

My gum boots are waiting.