Friday Night Storm

     The last week has been very hot and humid, but the weather finally broke this past Friday.  As I was taking the bus home, I noticed a lot of dark, fast-moving clouds with some scary-looking ones further north and wasn't sure I was going to make it home in time before the inevitable rain started.  Luckily, I got on my bike and sped home and the first drops started to fall once I was safely ensconced in the homestead! CC and I rushed around and shut windows as the skies opened up and a torrential downpour ensued.  Right after it stopped, we opened up all the doors and windows to try and air out the still-humid house.  We then headed downtown to do some banking and get some gelato, but on the way back home, we got caught in another downpour and both got soaked.  It was still quite warm in the house, but we opened up all of the doors and windows to get a cross-breeze before we went to bed. I was awoken at 12:30 a.m. by the sound of a poster falling off the wall and noticed a LOT of thunder and lightning.  Just as I shut the windows and doors we had an even more violent storm with the wind whipping the backyard trees around crazily.  It didn't last long and I didn't see a lot  of damage out back.

    The next day, Saturday, we headed off to Toronto to visit my brother and his family, and as we passed Royal City Park, we noticed yellow tape and lots of trees and branches down.  It had already suffered a lot of damage earlier this year after being hit by an ice storm, so this was a surprise, to say the least.

     Today, after lunch, we decided to head down to the park to see the damage for ourselves.  Even though there was lots of yellow tape up and signs advising people of the potential hazards, lots of people were walking amongst the remains of the trees to survey the storm's destruction. A couple of tall, older evergreens had been broken in half with their top halves lying on the ground, and a couple of large trees were completely uprooted, lying on the ground with their roots exposed.  Interestingly, the park was once a dump, so beneath the roots was all sorts of old garbage - metal, glass, etc.  Fortunately, the trees that came down didn't seem to hit any of the newer trees that had been planted after the last, destructive storm.