The meeting was called to order right on time by Peter with the assistance of Heather who whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention. Ron Cooley said Grace and Tom Croft led the singing of the National Anthem. Peter commented that the snow was almost spooky given our Speaker for the day.
Lunch was poached salmon with dill sauce dressed up with lemon and prawns.
Announcements: 1) Heather reminded everyone to sign up for the January 31st luncheon which will be at the Oak Bay Bistro. A menu will be forthcoming. 2) Peter reminded everyone of the Spring Concert on March 24 at 2:30 PM and encouraged everyone to buy tickets
Hans introduced the visitors, there were no visiting Rotarians. Visitors were George Stewardson a guest of Don O’Coffey and Anne McCarthy our guest speaker.
Mark Bedford and Jerry McLean spoke on why they were proud to be a Rotarian. Mark dated this to ‘68 or ‘69 when he first attended a District Conference in Peace River as a speaker. He came away thinking that after all he had heard, seen and enjoyed, if a bunch of guys [it was all guys then] could get so much achieved and have fun then he wanted to be a part of it. Many years later he discovered that the District Governor, having heard him at the conference, wanted to get him for his church and that was how he later came to move to Calgary. Jerry said his story was much shorter, that he joined for all the wrong reasons - to get Jack Petrie off his back - and now he is very proud to be a member for all the right reasons. He spoke of the effect of Christie Johnson’s talk about the Malawi girls school and his involvement there.
Peter showed some “outtakes” from the many pictures that have been taken. As it is Rotary Awareness Month these pictures were captioned but “in the kindest spirit”.
Ron Cooley was our fines' master: Wolf for not signing in, Jim for being very late which saved Wyn, David Maxwell for thinking Ron was Jerry, Hans for being late as Greeter, David Sills for taking so much time going through the badges to find his own, one dollar for anyone who had given up on their New Year’s resolution already, and ... one dollar for everyone at Ron’s table who did not get him a drink. There was one happy dollar - Jim whose neighbor has a Rotarian’s approach to selling snow tires.
There were no birthday or wedding anniversaries. Both David Maxwell and Anne Sims have anniversaries for joining Rotary today. Perry had the winning ticket but he pulled a black marble.
The speaker was introduced by Lori who said it was good timing for the topic since everyone is talking about the snow and the weather today. Anne McCarthy has been with Environment Canada, weather services and has worked in many places in Canada including up north.
The topic of weather is huge. Weather starts at the ground and goes up to 60,000 feet. You can create a forecast model without human intervention but it will not be as accurate, and it is accuracy that counts.
To make a forecast:
1. Start with data from planes, ships, automated sensors around the world, upper air balloons, radar, and satellites [remote sensing from space].
2. Add the weather equations (weather is math and physics made visible). Number crunching for these is done by a supercomputer in Montréal.
3. Numerically model the atmosphere up to 50 or 60,000 feet. This is done because you cannot understand the surface without understanding all the way up. Anne showed us some charts that were basically slices of the atmosphere showing the airflow developing at various heights which are good indicators of which systems are going to get “fueled up”
4. Take these snapshots over several hours, put it together with the math, the various graphs, and other data
5. Add human brains and experience
The forecaster will take the best of the models and adjust based on his knowledge and experience to produce the day-1 and day-2 forcasts on the website where all of that information and all of the models are worked down into very few words ... cloudy with sunny breaks in the afternoon.
Chance of precipitation (COP)
Anne then talked about what a "chance of precipitation” means. A 30% chance means there is a 30% chance that measurable precipitation (.2mm of rain - that’s less than a line created by your pen) will fall somewhere in the forecast area during the forecast period.
Forecasters look at patterns and the likelihood of precipitation based on those patterns. Anne equated it to “a 40% chance of snoozing” if she is an after dinner speaker. This would mean that out of 10 speeches given by her, on four occasions one or more person would have a snooze. It’s not 40% of the people, nor everyone 40% of the time, and it does not deal with how fast asleep these people are. The same applies to chance of precipitation. So a 40% chance of precipitation means that 4 out of ten times given the weather conditions it will rain at least .2 mm; it does not include any indication of how much it will actually rain.
Anne explained that weather in Victoria is special. Weather is affected by topography. Usually we have a southwest flow. This means that the systems come in from the Pacific and slide down the island as it comes acorss the island hitting Port Hardy first. The system comes from the northwest. The surface winds may be south and east but up aloft the system is from the southwest. She used the example of someone with a fire hose which is on, stepping sideways. The system comes in the same way.
As the systems approach Victoria they hit the Olympic Mountains; the air rises, becomes colder, and can hold less water so it rains; after the air comes over the mountains it falls, warms, and is able to hold more moisture. This creates the rain shadow which Victoria enjoys. The center of the rain shadow is in the Straits of Juan de Fuca just off Oak Bay. As a result it can be raining at the ferry but still be sunny in Oak Bay. When looking at the weather forecast you can reduce the chance of precipitation for Oak Bay by 10 to 20% and increase it for Sooke by 20 to 30%. Brian won a prize for knowing that the Highlands get more rain than Oak Bay. (Gonzales gets about 620 mm annually (thigh high), Victoria International Airport 860 mm (waist high), and Prince Rupert 2600 mm (swimming!)
Environment Canada:
- observes and preserves - this includes collecting data with various partners
- forecasts
- warns
- disseminates information
- does research
You can have a personal consultation with them for a fee.
If you want to know the weather, you can go to www.weatheroffice.gc.ca which apparently gets about 40% of the Government of Canada hits.
Tom and Hans each won a book for their interest in things marine.
Neil Rawnsley thanked the speaker for providing one of the most relevant talks we’ve had and commented that the snooze factor for Anne’s talk was 0%.
There being nothing else for the good of Rotary, the meeting closed with the singing of God Save the Queen.
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