Pity the weather-beaten Prairies

Patrick White in the Globe and Mail (Toronto): For two weeks, the skies have treated the Prairies like a dirty old shirt. Washed with record-setting rain, spun through a cycle of tornadoes and now scorched by warmer-than-average temperatures, the grain belt has come out of the climatic wash in tatters. “It’s been a real litany of misery, hardship and misfortune,” said Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger visited the latest victims of tempestuous western weather on Wednesday, assuring residents of the Peguis First Nation that the province will help build flood protection for the reserve 180 kilometres north of Winnipeg. Over 200 residents of the community fled their homes after 150 millimetres of rain fell last weekend. With any luck, that storm will mark the end of one of the most miserable two months in the recorded history of Canada’s breadbasket.

This spring was the wettest Environment Canada has ever observed for much of the Prairies, with 70 per cent more precipitation falling than in an average year. The deluge comes on the heels of one of the driest periods since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a wild swing that has made a public enemy of many a weatherman. “There’s just no normal any more,” Mr. Phillips lamented. “The climate everywhere is becoming highly unpredictable.”