Polar Bear Blog - July 23, 2006

We are soaked in a thick fog this morning, my own lake barely visible. Think of it as a hangover from last night's antics; a continuing barrage of lightning and thunder and torrential rain.

This seems to be the result of a hot northern summer. While Churchill has enjoyed a very reasonable 15-20C, the rest of the northern Manitoba has been up around 25-30C. As the air warms over the land, south winds begin to push this air north towards the bay, creating tremendous, billowing cumulus clouds along the way.

Two years ago, we watched these thunderclouds turn over on themselves as they moved over Churchill and onto the cool, brackish water of Hudson Bay. With their puffy domes and towers collapsing, the clouds turned their anger from the Bay to our town. We went from the hotspot in Manitoba at 25C to the cold spot (around 5C) and golf ball size hail in less than five minutes.

Yesterday, you could see the storms building on the horizon by about 1 or 2 pm. It would take about five hours for them to reach Churchill and unleash their fury. Nevertheless, it was pretty amazing, provided that you were inside.

The only real problem with these incredible lightning displays is for the polar bears. Often, with storms such as these, the majority of the rain occurs when they reach the coast. The same cannot be said for lightning. Considering this has been a fairly dry summer, the northern forest and tundra can ignite quickly.
Coming from the south, these lightning strikes occur directly over the polar bear maternity denning area. Any fires in there destroy polar bear dens that have been active for decades. With little suitable habitat available for new dens, this can be a major difficulty for the western Hudson Bay bears.

Here is a link to the forest fire update from the Province of Manitoba. So far, it looks to be a fairly reasonable fire season in the north (click here for historical fire information - 1914-2004) but scientists figure that a changing climate will mean more dry summers, more lightning strikes and more challenges for the polar bears of Churchill.

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