I Love Weather..

I recently attended a meeting of local residents considering the possibility of forming a lake association. The question was asked: 

"What do you love about the lake?"

Thirty seconds were allotted for the response so that the forty or fifty people in attendance could all get a chance to voice their favourite thing. That was not enough time. My ten-second response boiled down to "I Love Weather" Please let me explain.

As Dorothy said, "There is No Place Like Home." Place has always been vitally important to us. If you are happy in your own skin and your environment, there is no reason to go anywhere. Travel is not as much fun as it used to be anyway. We spent more than twenty years looking before finding our Sanctuary at Singleton Lake. That time and effort devoted to searching was well spent … along with all of our savings. 

The boundaries of our search area were defined mainly by the weather. As with every reliable forecast, one must start with the big picture before you can drill down to the specifics. Climate change was thus the starting point and those parameters were well established even in 1980 when the legwork began. 

Michael Mann's best estimate of global temperature trends including uncertainty - the "hockey stick' graph. The Earth was going to warm quickly as climate tipping points started to fall like dominoes.

Another way of graphing the Global Temperature variations since the days of Christ. 
There is nothing natural about these anthropogenic trends.

Looking at recent history, the global temperature anomaly
for every month from 1880 to 2021. Frankly, the data
since the Industrial Revolution is overwhelming!

Simply, the planet was going to warm with the accelerating release of greenhouse gases (GHG). Initial melting of snow and ice over the poles would result in unequal warming as polar reflective surfaces were turned into dark soils that absorbed the sun's energy. The poles would warm at rates exceeding four times that of the rest of the globe. The temperature gradients between the equator and poles would weaken. The jet stream driven by this contrast in latitudinal temperature would also slow down and evolve into a high amplitude meandering current. The weakened jet stream favours a seven-wave pattern along a mid-latitude path around the Globe. See Wave Number 7. 

The persistent long-wave pattern as revealed in the    
temperature anomaly chart.
 

Geography and the Rocky Mountains would encourage a persistent atmospheric long-wave ridge to form over the West Coast. Hot and generally dry weather would predominate in the ridge although flooding deluges from atmospheric rivers would certainly penetrate the ridge periodically. 

A long-wave trough would dig downstream over eastern North America. Eastern Ontario was right in the centre of that meteorological trough and would enjoy cooler temperatures, clouds and more precipitation than the West Coast - at least for a while. 

The macro-scale forecast pointed us to search for home in "Eastern Ontario". It was time to drill down beyond climate change and consider other important weather factors. 

Severe convection is an important concern. Having spent a career seeing what supercellular thunderstorms might do to a home, convection was a vital forecast parameter. 

The lake breeze convergence lines cast "convective shadows"   
along the shores of the Great Lakes often extending inland 
100 km from the water's edge.

The Lake Ontario lake breeze convergence line is an essential focus for summer convection. Thunderstorms need not only heat and moisture as fuels but also low-level convergence lines to initiate the convection. The temperature contrast between land and water surfaces creates lake breeze convergence lines. The one that develops along the north shore of Lake Ontario guides thunderstorms along a line that extends eastward through Lyndhurst to Athens. Near Athens, the increasing distance from Lake Ontario weakens that convergence and thunderstorms tend to turn to the right into areas of higher heat, humidity and fuel. 

Right movers coming off the tip of the Lake Ontario
convergence line tend to make the turn for
stage right and move southeastward near Athens

This Lake Ontario Lake Breeze convection line was the northern edge of our search area

Summer weather might be scary and more exciting but winter weather actually has more societal impact. I had worked long shifts during the "The Ice Storm of 1998". Freezing rain and ice accretion are not to be taken lightly. Freezing rain in the Ottawa Valley and along the St. Lawrence provide both the eastern and southern boundaries for our search area.  

Winter snowsqualls were another concern. It is best to be able to see the hood of your car when you are driving. Whiteouts are potentially lethal. The only lake-induced snowsqualls that impact eastern Ontario must originate from Lake Ontario. The Arctic air must both be sufficiently cold and the low-level winds properly aligned to generate snowsqualls. The orientation of Lake Ontario encourages westerly winds that can inundate the Tug Hills of New York State with paralyzing snow accumulations. Only southwesterly winds can direct snowsqualls down the St Lawrence River Valley. As the winds turn more to the south, the snowsqualls tend to lose their alignment and become warmer as well. Winds of 230 degrees or less are not effective snowsquall generators. Snowsqualls provide a refinement on the southern boundary of the search area. 

When all of the above climate and weather factors are considered, the resulting search area becomes the Goldilock Triangle of Eastern Ontario. The climate and weather had narrowed our search window considerably.

The summer Lake Ontario lake breeze front defined the northern edge. The right-moving supercells tracking southeast around Athens were the eastern flank of the search area. The 230-degree vector from Kingston and the west end of Lake Ontario was the limit to the south. The major highways completed or reinforced the western and southern boundaries. We did not wish to play in the traffic.

I had never explored the Goldilock Triangle of Eastern Ontario as a kid with my canoe. Not too hot… not too cold (but enough to freeze out the spongy moth at minus 29 Celsius in the winter) ... supercellular convection less likely.. . snowsqualls improbable ...  long-duration freezing rain rare if at all... The area was just right as Goldilocks would say. 

There are other considerations as well. They all seem to come down to conditions that are not natural and impact the senses. 

• Enjoying a really dark night sky with millions of stars in view is important. A starry, starry night was important to Vincent as well. Light pollution is becoming more invasive as populations grow. 
• No multi-lane, busy highways nearby. Sound pollution can be a problem and sound can carry great distances under a nighttime or frontal inversion (although my hearing loss might mitigate that.) 
• Visual pollution includes almost anything that is not natural. Signs, signs, everywhere a sign was a favourite song by the Five Man Electrical Band from my youth.
• We have been in areas where you can actually taste and smell the air you are breathing. Not good.

The area in question was also in the centre of the north-south nature corridor linking the Adirondacks to Algonquin and the wild watersheds of western Quebec including the famed Dumoine. Several groups were already active in the area. Linda and I share the missions of these organizations. 

• Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority
• Leeds-Grenville Stewardship Council:
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO;
• Frontenac Arch Biosphere, FAB;
• Algonquin to Adirondacks Conservation Association, A2A; and 
• Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, CPAWS.

Frontenac Arch Biosphere and the 
Queens University Biological Station

Algonquin to Adirondacks Conservation Association, A2A

The final, very limited search area had been identified. 

Singleton Lake was even absent on many of the maps we
 had been using in our search.

Linda discovered the perfect property in the autumn of 2006 encompassing the eastern shore of Singleton Lake. In fact, I credit her with everything including the design of our one-level home. Surround yourself with nature and you will find a good place to live - no need to travel anywhere. 

Our goal was to have a minimal footprint, build efficiently and green and then work in harmony with nature. That included planting thousands of trees, erecting hundreds of birdhouses, protecting turtle nests and creating habitats for all kinds of species that share the land with us. 

The Singleton Sanctuary is surrounded by unique and rare environments that deserve respect and conservation. The BioBlitz of 2010 identified almost 400 species that we share the ecosystem with. That number has hopefully increased since 2010 due to the efforts undertaken. Some disease-resistant butternut trees we have planted still have not shown signs of being infected by the canker - sadly, some have.

Eight species at risk were documented during the BioBlitz including:

• Cerulean Warbler (SC
• Grass Pickerel (SC)
• Bald eagle (SC)
• Monarch (SC)
• Butternut (END)
• Stinkpot (THR)
• Map turtle (SC)
• Ratsnake (THR)

Special Concern (SC), “species of special concern” means a wildlife species that may become a threatened or an endangered species because of a combination of biological characteristics and identified threats.

Threatened (THR), "any species which is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range."

Endangered (END), "Endangered" – "very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future"; 

As an added bonus, the Singleton Sanctuary is also in the middle of the path of mid-latitude synoptic-scale storms... the perfect place to be for an artist and meteorologist! The weather is different and inspiring every day.

We are all stewards of the land, privileged to appreciate its beauty during our lifetime but responsible for leaving the environment better off for the future and all inhabitants...

The Singleton Sanctuary is equally special in the winter. 

"I Love The Weather.." was the short answer provided. The above was the long answer and closer to the whole truth and nothing but the truth... so help me... 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil the Forecaster Chadwick