Monday, January 22, 2018

#0637 "Sunset on Isabel"

Hurricane Isabel followed the same track as Hurricane Hazel (October 14-15, 1954). We received 30 mm of rain at the Watershed Farm. A few small branches were knocked down but generally, it was just a good soaking.

The media had blown Isabel up as the "daughter of Hazel" and the public were expecting lots of flooding and perhaps 81 or so Canadian deaths. The memory of Raymore Drive where 1201 feet of road was washed away and 35 people died, was still fairly fresh in the memory of the public. The floodwaters slowly rose in the Holland Marsh and around Schomberg allowing people to escape the waters. Highway 400 in the Holland Marsh was under as much as 10 feet in some places. The Holland Marsh crops were lost.

Hurricane Hazel was the most significant hurricane of 1954. At least 400 people died in Haiti before the Category 4 Hazel reached the Carolinas. Another 95 people died in the US before Hazel crossed Lake Ontario as an extratropical storm. The name "Hazel" was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes. The conservation authorities were one good thing that emerged from the memories and conversations of Hazel.




I remembered the impacts of Hazel on Point Pleasant Park in the west end of Kingston. I was really young but my Dad and the neighbour (Cep Drinka) from across the street were on the front step to witness the wind and the rain. Some things like that you never forget... Maybe that is why I became a meteorologist?

Before the event, the media was saying that "Isabel was one ugly bitch". The weather centre downplayed it appropriately but no one was listening. After the rain ended, headlines called the storm "Fizzabel". My painting puts the storm to bed along with the turbulent northerly winds and shredded stratocumulus.

This is the plein air view looking west out the family room window in the last moments of daylight.

I was trying out a sample of Gator foam Plein Air Painting Panels.
 Click to go to Chadwick Art... Thank you!

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