Staying Dry in a Changing Climate
If you saw me schlepping through ankle deep water on the August holiday Monday, you’d never imagine I own 10 umbrellas and a raincoat, and have temporary custody of three rain bonnets intended for my mother. Yet, there I was, with more water in my clothes than you’d find in a Perrier truck, out in yet another of modern Toronto’s surprise monsoons.
I’d stayed indoors that day, working on the deadly-dull stuff of life maintenance - paying bills, tracking business expenses, catching up on email, and filing. I’ve been nursing a bum foot, a holdover from a misstep on my Ireland trip, but by 3:30, knowing that physical health must sometimes give way to psychological well-being, I decided on a not-so-quick saunter by the river. A greyness had hung over Toronto all day, and, if I’m to be honest, it was starting to darken towards the northwest. We were on the bazillionith day of a humid stretch that can produce downpours, so I gave my weather app a quick glance. Light rain for 18 minutes followed by 27 minutes of nothing, then another round of 10 minutes of light rain. Who the hell are they kidding? As if they can predict that. Nonetheless, I wrapped my foot in a tensor bandage and shoved both of them into supportive running shoes. That’s for you, Mary, I thought, knowing how my chiropractor would pry from me any delinquent behaviour at my next appointment.
I paused beside the umbrella stand at the door, then moved on. My late husband, Jack, repurposed a vintage fire extinguisher and then went on an umbrella-acquisition spree, he not being someone given to moderation of any sort. My favourite’s the one with the skull as a handle. The collection in its vessel looks great in my new house. But such a hassle to carry one.
Truth is, I was an adult before I’d ever used an umbrella. On the farm, rain was a factor only if it made the ground too wet for machinery. Short of that, we got wet. If we needed to leave the property, we took the car: efficient with windshield wipers ready to deploy as necessary. My mother had the extra insurance of a rain bonnet in her purse. (You can read more about my mother’s valuable hair here.) No-one went for health walks.
Umbrella use mirrors weather trends. In the 90s, Toronto rainfalls were not too frequent, generally predicted, and typically moderate. If rain was forecast, then it made sense to carry an umbrella - a telescopic one that fit in your bag would do the job.
When I moved to the west coast in the early 2000s, however, I learned that umbrellas are for vain people who avoid wet hair. It’s how Torontonians view those who use umbrellas in the snow. It’s just not done. In BC, throw your Gore-tex hooded jacket on over your jeans and fleece garb, put your waterproof hiking boots on and you’re good for a three hour ramble in the woods, whatever the climate throws at you. Same in Ireland - when water hangs in the air daily, you give up on taming your frizzies or buying slow-drying fabrics. I never caught on to the Gore-tex thing — such drab colours! - but I have embraced raincoats.
The deluge of August 19, 2005 was, for me, the end of weather predictability in Toronto. This was next-level rain with parts of the GTA received up to 175 mm of rain in less than an hour causing extensive flooding, including the Don Valley Parkway, one of the city’s main north-south arteries. Tornadoes touched down in three parts of southern Ontario. I sat watching from inside my house-sit in mid-town, conscious that we were experiencing something very different and quite alarming.
We’ve had a few of these since, and they’re growing in frequency. The July 2013 flood cause an estimated $1B in damage in Toronto. Another hit in late summer of 2018. And then there’s the unbelievable downpour of July 16 of this year. I watched from the second floor office of Chandlerville as water pummelled the skylights and then looked in the laneway to see water rising alarmingly due to a catch basin blocked by debris from the newly-formed river rushing down the lane. It, plus a few other, lesser downfalls, made July 2024 the rainiest month on record for Toronto: 215 mm.
An umbrella is useless in this kind of rain. And with such heat and humidity, I’d have melted away in my raincoat. So when I was about a kilometre from home on my holiday Monday walk and the grey sky got inky and started to produce a gentle coating, I took refuge under a small riverside tree. I didn’t lament my failure to take rain gear. Indeed I took a selfie to mark the little rainfall. The drops got bigger and the sky even inkier, so I limped on my achy ankle to join another pedestrian stranded under a bigger tree, better to block the drops. For awhile she and I looked in opposite directions, consciously ignoring each other like good Torontonians. It began to look like July 16, and nature’s umbrella - the tree canopy - was failing us. I lamented not having put my phone in a baggie.
My fellow refugee spoke first: “It looks like it’s going to continue. Shall we go for it?”
I laughed and stepped onto the asphalt path with her. My blue t-shirt immediately went three shades darker and I could not longer see through my glasses. Until our routes separated, we giggled and chatted as we walked along sharing this wacky experience. I continued into my community, laughing at the futility at moving away from the cars passing by. Their wake could do no worse to me than nature had done. At home, I stripped and wrung my clothes out in my gazebo, confident of the privacy the sodden bug screens provided. And my phone still worked!
I can’t help but admire the obstinance of those who deny ours is a changing climate. How comforting it must be! I know the rest of you share my worry about the future. While getting an unplanned drenching on a holiday Monday makes a cute anecdote, there’s nothing amusing about a fiery blaze tearing through Jasper, Alberta or people losing their homes to rising sea levels.
(above - me at the beginning of the downpour; my rain soaked private gazebo; before I stripped; and some choices I could have made - rain bonnet, rain coat, umbrella stand)
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