Wednesday 6 June 2012

Today's sky over Calgary in one of the strangest,moodiest looking skies I've ever seen,and it would not surprise me at all if we were in for some severe weather.Everywhere over the whole vista there are open parts.letting sunlight through.To the south there is an arch,which looks like a Chinook arch,but really isn't since Chinooks come out of the west or southwest,out over the Rockies.It's not clear behind the arch but it's clearer and more luminous than the skies to the north of it.The sky looks to be drawing water up into itself too,out of the Bow Valley far off to the south.West is a dull gray,streaked and spotted with a lemony yellow in places.The Rockies are  barely visible for the large amount of mist lying close to the ground,but from what I can see,they are losing their snow quickly.The water level in the Bow doesn't reflect the loss of snow,but if these skies open up,all the rivers will soon be higher than normal.I've never seen the bow flood.In these parts,it's the Elbow River that causes all the problems.The North and the northeast are where my biggest concerns lie.Heading straight east,out of downtown the skies are dark almost to the point of blackness,but then as we turn north become more gray,so that they look like battleships low in the water and moving from east to west.The wind at ground level,on 36th street,where I'm standing is out of the west though.I can see dozens of pipe like little tendrils hanging down from those low lying clouds,though none of them appear to be funnels.But from experience.I know that this is the kind of sky that can show funnels very quickly.There appears to be no electrical activity in the sky yet but that too can change in a flash.There was one flash of lightening yesterday,followed immediately by thunder.But only one.It must have rained overnight as there is a lot of water lying on the ground in the downtown area.I slept well and heard neither rain nor thunder.In a word,today has an ominous feel to it,like the severe weather might strike again at a moments notice.I'm not certain how bad it will get,but today is unlikely to be a calm day.It's such a shame that my cell phone was not sufficiently charged for me to get photos of the fascinating heavens over our city this morning.It also seems as I didn't wait quite long enough to do my memoir writers homework on the subject of colours as today the sky is in full display of about a thousand of them,mostly some shades of grey,which I had no idea was so rich in variety.It's as if a huge grey peacock has partly blotted out the sun by spreading its wings over the skies.Weather may be tomorrows headlines here in Calgary.

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