Weather Eye: Far from home, signs of nature, skies helped with forecasts

I remember one summer a number of years back, I went to Houston, B.C., to do some work at a youth camp. This was way before smartphones and personal computers. As I settled in, word spread that I was the resident weatherman. One of my chores was to give a weather forecast each evening after dinner for the next day.

It was the middle of July, and one could presume the weather would be mostly fair, right? Facing unfamiliar territory and unknown weather patterns nearly a thousand miles north of my home in Vancouver, it wasn’t so easy.

One evening, I pondered the situation. Remembering my studies of nature and weather I began to feel a bit more confident. I observed the birds in the air, watched the squirrels and other land animals, and listened to the frogs and crickets.

Then I also noticed the cook bringing the day’s trash to the burn barrel and lighting it. The smoke drifted lazily upward. The next day, the weather was the same as the day before.

Over a few days, I got the hang of it. Besides the signs of nature, my forecast was also based on which way the wind blew each night at the burn barrel. With that and the realization that my car’s altimeter could tell me if the atmospheric pressure was rising or falling, I did quite well.

I was always the last one to the evening gathering, waiting upon the dear chef to get that “weather burn barrel” smoking. No one was ever the wiser. From that day on, I have appreciated the signs of the skies and nature.

Patrick Timm is a local weather specialist. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at http://patricktimm.com.