You'll probably want to enlarge this. It's a Chinook line. You can see this in the sky when a Chinook is on it's way. It's caused by the air that ripples over the mountains. It's a straight line cut through the clouds and almost never produces snow or rain.
There is a phenomena in Alberta called a Chinook (the more technical term for it is Foehn Wind). This is when warm air from the west comes over the Rocky Mountains and blows into Alberta. It's usually welcomed with open arms here, because temperatures can rise 40+º in one day. In the morning, it can be -20ºC, you're bundled up and trying not to freeze your hand to the car door when you open it on the way to work, and by mid afternoon, you're in a t-shirt and rubber boots because it's +20ºC and the foot of snow you got yesterday has completely melted. This is usually when you realize your windshield washer fluid is low or completely out. Something typically discovered as a large semi passes you and sprays your entire vehicle with brown slush.
Another thing that comes with these beautiful, and short lived, spring-like days is something called a Chinook wind. This can range from a warm breeze to hurricane force winds. If you doubt that statement as exaggeration...in southern Alberta in 1962, Chinook winds were recorded gusting at 171 km/hr...or 106mph.
On January 15th, I think we may have beat the wind record here in our little campground. Ok, perhaps that was an exaggeration, BUT...I was sincerely afraid for our safety and doubtful that we would see the morning unscathed.
The chinook rolled in sometime during the evening of the 14th. When Allan and I went to bed, it was -15ºC. When we woke up at 7am on the morning of the 15th, it was +7ºC. That's a rise in temperature of 22ºC! It was breezy out, but nothing really disconcerting. Just another Chinook day in Alberta. So we thought.
By the afternoon, the winds were gusting. I was at DFI's office doing paper work, and had to return to the campground to pick Willy up for his swimming. When I got into the campground, there was a tree that had fallen across the road between me and our stall. Luckily, it was about 50ft long, but thin, and I was able to move it off the road and go to our stall. Branches were flying everywhere, leaves that hadn't fallen in the fall were filling the air. The trees were rubbing together and groaning and creaking. It was quite eerie. I loaded Willy into the truck and we headed back to town for his swimming and some forest wardens.
Returning home that evening, you could hear the branches of the trees snapping, and we could see a couple more trees that had fallen further down the road. Allan walked around the RV to make sure that we didn't have any trees on it, or any damage from flying branches. We didn't have anything on the RV, but smaller branches had been blown with enough force to pierce the skirting. With everything flying around, we went inside.
The rest of the evening was spent holding our breaths as we could hear trees snapping and falling all around us. I was convinced with every snap and crash that the next one was landing on the 5th wheel or on one of our trucks. God be praised, we made it through the night, and none of our property was damaged.
A small tree that had fallen between our RV (Back right) and our neighbor's (Left)
This stall was occupied up until New years. It's been vacant only for 2 weeks. He'd be happy he left if he saw this!
Another empty stall. That's our RV in the background.
This one snapped across the road. It's about 15ft from my dining room window. It fell parallel to the RV.
I have many many more photos of many other trees that fell that night. I wouldn't be surprised if there are over 50 trees that came down that night. By the grace of God, no one was hurt. Only one of our neighbours, out of nine, was unfortunate enough to have a tree land on his RV. As far as I know, everyone is ok though.
This is the neighbor who's RV was damaged. You can see where the tree snapped and fell on his place.
Our neighbour now has a lovely green tarp on his roof. My heart goes out to them. Like us...that was their home. If you look closely you can see that he even has a porch built onto his RV. He's been at this campground for 2 years now. You can also see the tree in the foreground that broke and is now leaning against other trees. Unfortunately, there are many of those around here right now. We are blessed in that we have no property damage, and there are no 'widow makers' (fallen, leaning trees) around our site. Some here didn't receive any damage, but they now have some widow makers hanging over them...literally.
It was definitely a wake up call that night. Our little piece of heaven is also full of danger. Just when we started getting used to checking outside for bears, wolves, or cougars before letting the dogs out, I now have a new concern, falling trees. I learned the other day that in Canada, the biggest danger in the woods isn't the wildlife, but rather falling trees. When Allan and I buy some land, we will definitely be clearing any trees around the RV that could fall on us. The shade is nice in the summer, but I can live without a sunroof in the winter!
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