29 straight days of rain....

[Anjew]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060...ea_rain_misery

Have you guys even noticed it's been 29 straight days?
It's so common to me that I just expect it all the time now lol...

VANCOUVER (CP) - Relentless rain is leaving Vancouverites in a funk while Canadians elsewhere could be smiling in gratitude. if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d['5MDNf9G_Ruc-']='&U=128iu8q1r%2fN%3d5MDNf9G_Ruc-%2fC%3d-1%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d-1';
A west to east flow of Pacific air has dumped enough rain on Vancouver that a record set in 1953 could be broken Monday after 29 consecutive days of precipitation. "There's a certain joy in the rest of Canada to think you're going through that spell of miserable weather and the fact that we're benefiting from that," David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada, said Wednesday from Toronto.
"Even in Winterpeg it's clearly a Pacific air that they're getting and here in Ontario and the Maritimes, it's all across the country."
In Vancouver, driving to work can feel like you're stuck in a car wash with everybody else.
At least Vancouverites can look on the bright side and cheer for the chance to break the record, said Phillips.
"It would just add to your misery if it stopped raining on Saturday. I mean, who cares about coming second place?
"To break a record in Canada, there's a certain badge of honour to that," Phillips said. "It's like being Canadian, it's more valuable than a passport to say 'We lived during that bout of inclement weather.' "
Vancouverites could be excused for their melancholy mood these days, having enjoyed just eight hours of sunshine since Dec. 19. Toronto had 16 hours of rays in that time.
The average amount of sunshine for the same period in Vancouver is 43 hours, Phillips said.
But rain-soaked citizens should just look to the future, when they can regale their grandchildren with tales of survival, Phillips said.
"We'll say that we saw and we survived. We're hearty out here. And the rest of Canada will say, 'Wow,' as we always say, 'at least it's not raining.' "
It's not the amount of rain that's the problem.
Compared to 250 millimetres of precipitation for the same period last year, Vancouver has had only 262 millimetres of rain since Dec. 19, Phillips says.
Blame it on the endless storm systems.
"The storm systems out there are like jumbo jets on the airport tarmac. It's just one after another, they're almost like daily schedules. Come in, drop your load and then the next one comes in. There's no real break between them."
On the plus side, the rain may be a bit of an insurance policy for British Columbia, where the provinces's reservoirs would be filled in case of a dry summer that could cause forest fires.
But while Vancouver residents may be clamouring to slap each other on the back if a new rain record is set, some might just be too depressed by now.
Days of darkness and wet weather can lead to seasonal affective disorder that's at its worst in January, said Mark Berber, a lecturer at the University of Toronto's department of psychiatry.
Winter blues affect about 25 per cent of Canadians while seasonal affective disorder, the more serious clinical type of depression, leaves about five to eight per cent of people across the country feeling depressed, said Berber, who treats SAD at Markham Stouffville Hospital.
"It's especially bad in Vancouver because it's overcast," he said.
"Our body clocks go out of sync because when we think it should be day, it's too dark."
Unlike depression, seasonal affective disorder causes an increase in appetite and sleepiness.
"So the patients are eating more in the winter in Vancouver and they're gaining weight."
The best way to treat the disorder is exercise and the use of a light box that can turn someone's mood around in about a week, Berber said.

[fable]

rain at this time of the season is a good thing.

[Goodfellow]

too bad the northshore mtns aren't high enough .. they'd have like 300+ cms right now. baker has 350 cms right now !! :O

[LastWerd]

i HATE rain. It fucks up my job

[James]

Originally Posted by LastWord

i HATE rain. It fucks up my job

mine too...being outside and digging ditches and all

[Grapes]

Hello from Sydney :D

[gnosis]

^Wot a BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily, I've ony had a couple of days out on location. (YAY! for studio shows!)

Frosty
(tanning in the studio under the BFL's)

[Two_Six]

I knew it was raining alot, I just didn't know its been 29 straight days, that's alot of days. I want the sunshine back.

I kinda feeling like I want to buy a ticket somewhere warm for about a week, thinking Mexico.

[fable]

The one shitty thing about hella downpoars is driving at night, and sometimes not being able to see the lines on the road.

Nonetheless, mother earth can always use some extra percipitation! Itll mean summer might be a tad more lush, and perhaps far less chances of forest fires.

[Mark]

i hate rain. most of you will disagree probably but i'd rather see snow.

[Kraig]

With the weather that we've been having here in Hollywood, I am not looking forward to coming back to Van this afternoon.

[miss.myra]

ahaha you have to admit, it's kind of funny to see people in Vancouver complaining about the rain.

hi?

[Technix]

RAIN RAIN RAIN.

Good to see Vancouver is KNOWN for something. haha.

[crookedking]

Originally Posted by Grapes

Hello from Sydney :D

haha, for a second i thought that that said surrey and i was just starting to think that the rest of us were going to get jealous of the people in surrey.

as for the thread at hand: i'm kind of hoping that we beat that 52 year record. we live in momentous Times, my friends, events of gigantic proportions are occuring within our Lives.