Cloud and rain on the east coast and soon on the west with snow in between

Here on the west coast we had a bit of rain during the night but Saturday was excellent with partly cloudy skies and a warm temperature of 10 degrees Celsius.  I was at Vancouver's Stanley Park during the mid afternoon and could see the cloud moving in from the west.  Vancouver Island to the west was shrouded in cloud as it often is during the cooler months of the year.  Rain is expected for the rest of the coming week but this is good for the spring flowers currently blooming and those yet to come.  Some of the trees are just coming into bloom now.  Good things are yet to come with better, milder weather.

 

So my friend and I went for a walk from the main beach at English Bay to the second beach and returned.  He was in the midst of a cold and I was just getting over mine.  The fresh sea air was good though to clear out the lungs.  The exercise was good too.  This has been my third trip to Stanley Park over the last few weekends.  During the first, I walked the entire seawall from the entrance at West Georgia Street to English Bay's 1st beach, stopped for tea and a sandwich (Italian antipasto) at Starbucks at Davie and Thurlow Streets and then continued on to Burrard to catch the 135 bus just south of West Georgia for the trip back along Hastings Street east to north Burnaby.

 

However, on this most recent foray into Vancouver's West End my friend and I stopped to sit on a bench overlooking the beach after I went to get a tea (blossom white) and a banana loaf at the nearby Starbucks at Denman and Davie Street and he went to Delaney's on Denman to get his favourite drink.  Then it was a drive back to north Burnaby (he had the car with him).

 

So the week looks like rain but we did have some nice temperatures during the week with 13 degrees in Osoyoos just north of the US border in the British Columbia interior.  The east coast has its rain, freezing rain and frozen pellets and a snowstorm in southern Ontario where I lived most of my life until I moved out to the west coast in February 2006.  This snowstorm affects Quebec as well.  So its a case of rain on both coasts and snow between.  After years of having to shovel the white stuff its certainly good not to have to do it for now.  Why do I say that?  Well, my friend with me on this recent visit to Vancouver mentioned that there had been a snowstorm in Florida (that melted of course).  Shows the unpredictable nature of our weather these days.  The reasons are many as far as global warming is concerned but these factors are influencing the weather around the globe.  As far as I've been able to determine, its part man's doing and also part of a natural cycle.  Either way, we just have to accept what comes and live with it.  And cycles don't last for ever, so expect at another change in due time.  When is the only question ("the more things change, the more they stay the same" as the saying goes).

 

Feel free to comment when the mood strikes.    - Volker