July 2015 – Promising start and finish

Wild roses in NE Moncton, 14 July 2015 (Dearing)

July started off warm and dry in Greater Moncton but once it started raining at mid-month it didn’t know when to stop.

The rain ushered in a lot of clouds and much cooler weather with a couple overnight lows dipping into the single digits.

Finally the last week of the month brought back some heat but Southeast New Brunswick has failed to reach 30 C since May.

JULY 2015 ALMANAC (at Greater Moncton International Airport)

AVERAGE HIGH 24.4 C

AVERAGE LOW 12.7 C

AVERAGE 18.6 C (about 0.2 degrees BELOW NORMAL)

EXTREME HIGH 29.4 (31 July)

EXTREME LOW 8.5 C (17 July)

RAINFALL 81.0 mm (about 10 percent BELOW NORMAL)

(Data courtesy Environment Canada over 30-year average 1981-2010)

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Hummingbirds become more frequent sight

Hummingbird flies away from feeder in NE Moncton, 29 July 2015 (Dearing)

Perhaps it was due to the colder than normal spring in Southeast New Brunswick, but hummingbirds seemed to arrive later this year.

Typically, hummers tend to arrive in the Maritimes by mid-May but it has been only in the past week or so that I have noticed them more frequently visiting my feeder.

Storm clouds linger in the Maritimes

Dark clouds near Salisbury, NB, 28 July 2015 (Facebook)

Weather rage typically develops when conditions are less than ideal for extended periods of time.

Over the past ten days or so in Southeast New Brunswick and all over the Maritimes, we have been seemingly stuck in a weather rut made up of clouds, rain, more clouds, a sliver of sunshine and then more rain sometimes even thunderstorms.

At least of trace of rain has fallen every day since 18 July at the Greater Moncton International Airport – almost 70 mm in total.

Police in Newfoundland search for summer…

Newfoundland has been having a cold and dreary summer to date and the provincial police force has officially launched a search for the season – at least they have a sense of humour!

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary were quoted in a news release, “When last seen, SUMMER was described as being between 20-30 degrees Celsius, blue skies with a bright and warm source of light in the sky,” the RNC said on Twitter. “There have been sporadic sightings of this bright object, but these sightings have been rare since May 2015.”

Here in New Brunswick, the weather hasn’t been much better this week with clouds and showers since Sunday amounting to more than 70 mm of rain – at least it isn’t dry anymore.

The sun breaks through in Southeast N.B.

Dorchester Beach looking at Hopewell Rocks and Shepody Mountain 6km away, 23 July 2015 (Dearing)

A beautiful spot to visit sandpipers and other shorebirds is in the Dorchester area at Johnson’s Mills.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada operates a wonderfully informative interpretive centre which spotlights birds in the area and in particular the semipalmated sandpiper.

The tiny bird doubles its body weight feeding on shrimp and other sea life in the upper Bay of Fundy during mid-summer every year on its way from the Arctic to South America.

July no longer dry in Southeast N.B.

Flower box in NE Moncton, 22 July 2015 (Dearing)

The flowers and plants seem to like the rain but several days of cloud and showers in Southeast New Brunswick have many wondering where mid-summer went.

Greater Moncton went from being drier than normal this July to having more than 50 mm of rain since Sunday which is more than half the monthly total.

Scattered thunderstorms rolled through the Maritimes today bringing downpours and cooler than normal daytime temperatures.

Kangaroos don’t seem to mind snow Down Under

A kangaroo in a snowy vineyard, Orange, New South Wales, Australia, 16 July 2015 (Bill Shrapnel)

Although it is officially winter in Australia, it seldom snows in lower elevations but it did this week.

Antarctic air pushed northward across New South Wales and Queensland bringing the first significant snow to the region – up to 10 cm – since the mid-1980s and some ski resorts in the mountains received 30 cm.

A vineyard owner in Orange, NSW, noted the kangaroos on his property seemed to enjoy a taste a wintry weather and were even playing in it.

Temperatures dropped to as low as -7 C and daytime highs struggled to reach 5 C with 15 C being a normal high for July.

On the coast in Sydney, low temperatures have fallen to 5 C, the lowest in 44 years.

Dry July creates busy fire season in N.B.

Wild roses in NE Moncton, 14 July 2015 (Dearing)

Prior to today in Greater Moncton, only 1 mm of rain had fallen this July which is dramatically different from a very wet June.

Some rain across New Brunswick this afternoon helped lower the fire risk and a province-wide burn ban has been lifted.

The Department of Natural Resources is having a busier forest fire season compared to last year.

More than 180 fires have been recorded in New Brunswick so far in 2015 which DNR officials say is much higher than this time last year.

Claudette is coming!

As of this morning, Tropical Storm Claudette is about 450 km southeast of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia with maximum sustained winds of 74 km/h and is moving northeast toward Newfoundland.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre says Claudette is expected to weaken with the storm likely becoming post-tropical by tonight.

The track shows the storm will likely arrive onshore near the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland.

UPDATE – On 15 July at 9 a.m., the Canadian Hurricane Centre issued its last statement when Post-Tropical Storm Claudette weakened once it moved onshore along the southeastern coast of Newfoundland.

Smoke from western fires drifts into N.B.

Forest fires may be burning in Western Canada right now but smoke from those blazes has drifted thousands of kilometres east into New Brunswick.

Smoke was spotted in the Greater Moncton area on Monday and Tuesday although it was not heavy enough to prompt a warning from Environment Canada.

Meantime as shown above, dry conditions in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan have led to an extreme fire danger while it remains mainly low from Manitoba to Atlantic Canada.