KEEPING IT COOL AT COUNTRY THUNDER
Lauren Moore, left, Maddy Keller and Leslie Kosch, from Cochrane, Alberta, are ready to beat the scorching heat during Country Thunder Saskatchewan in Craven.
The “proof is in the precipitation” — or lack thereof — according to senior climatologist with Environment Canada, David Phillips. “You can hear that it’s dry there. All that snap, crackling and popping as you walk along on grass or in fields is just too dry for too long,” said Phillips.
Regina has had less than half the amount of rain the city normally sees this time of year. Precipitation totals for May, June and July, which Phillips said is essentially the growing season in and outside the city, are all lower than normal.
May saw 6.9 millimetres of rain compared to the usual 48 mm. June was only slightly below average with 56 mm compared to 71, but so far in July there has been no rain and to make things even worse, temperatures have been higher than average.
Phillips said normal highs for this time of year are around 25 C, but we are seeing temperatures of 29 C and above.
For Dutch Growers owner and operator Tim Van Duyvendyk, the prolonged heat doubled with no rain means watering the plants and flowers more often.
“Water isn’t a huge extra expense to watering those plants, but the physical labour involved to water the plants, that starts to add up after a while,” said Van Duyvendyk. “Paying the employees to do the actual watering. That’s the true expense.”
He said there’s not much they can do during drought situations except limit the number of plants they bring in. Less inventory means less to water. Any plants seen past their prime — like tomatoes at this time of year — are sacrificed in order to cut back on water.
Pat Wilson, director of Water Works, said water use in the City of Regina is up a little, but remains within the five-year average. Average water use during the summer is 85 megalitres per day, with the highest this summer coming in at 120 megalitres on July 7. Wilson said the highest water use they expect to see during the summer is 135 megalitres per day.
“It’s within what our system is capable of handling,” said Wilson. Even if the dry, hot weather continues through the summer, Wilson said they don’t expect it would cause any problems, but she does encourage residents to be smart about their water use.
“Think about watering in offpeak hours where it has the best benefit. If you water in the middle of the day, it’s going to just burn off and not really benefit your plants,” said Wilson.
Phillips said the forecast for the next seven days calls for more bone-dry weather. He said grass fires are certainly a possibility with only a 30 per cent chance of rain seen in the next two-week forecast and we may begin to see grasshoppers developing.
In the past 26 days, there has only been five millimetres of rain. Phillips said the city would normally get 55 mm in that time period.
“Weather can be the enemy, but it can also be the rescue and there’s no rescue rains in the immediate forecast and our models are showing for the rest of the summer ... more beer drinking weather ... good beaching weather, but if you have a stake in agriculture it’s not good,” said Phillips.
More beer drinking weather ... good beaching weather, but if you have a stake in agriculture it’s not good.