This is a chinook - 51° 05' 03" N 115° 22' 07" W

By Kate and Sean -

Last Saturday, it was -40°C, today is -6°C and the forecast for tomorrow is in the positives. How does this happen? How does the temperature jump by 20°C in less than 24 hours?

A chinook causes temperatures to soar!

This, my friends, is the effect of a chinook.  

Our boat is called Chinook and when we describe it as a warm, dry, welcome wind, not everyone understands.  But if you live in southern Alberta under the influence of chinooks, these winds are very welcome.  When a chinook blows in, the temperatures can jump by 20-30°C in just a few hours. Chinook winds are often called snow eaters.

A chinook is a föhn wind, or a warm, down-slope wind on the eastern (or lee) side of the Rocky Mountains. They form due to the tall mountain ranges and the moist coastal air is dropped on the windward side and the high level dry air plunges down the lee side of the mountains. The air warms as it descends and is further warmed by the sun on the clear leeside.  

A chinook arch will form under these conditions.  This is a very distinct band of cloud with clear skies on one side.  A chinook arch occurs when the warm air starts to rise on the lee side of the mountains.  Driving between Calgary and Canmore during a chinook, the band of cloud is obvious.  We love seeing a chinook arch as it means our time in the deep freeze is nearing an end!



A chinook arch as seen by Kate and Sean driving west from Calgary 

To Australians, a chinook is a helicopter.  To those on the west coast, it is a salmon.  But to those of us living in southern Alberta, it is a warm, very welcome wind.  And it is after this wind, we have named our boat Chinook!

Comments

Post a Comment

Check out our most popular posts!

Moving Aboard - 49° 38' 27" N 01° 37' 00" E

By Kate and Sean -
Image
Wow, that was a big week.  We are exhausted. ... and smitten! Monday was a paperwork day, but aboard Chinook.  We went over the contract, item by item, to ensure that everything the contract stated would be delivered.  There were a few things missing or incomplete (mixups in ordering, vendor delivery timing issues) but they were noted with written assurances that they would be delivered, changed out or corrected.  This all needed to be clearly stated before we transfer the lion's share of the purchase amount to Garcia. Signing and double-checking the contract Anything that wasn't in place, was incomplete or not working properly would be dealt with by the warranty team.   There was no refuting that they had delivered A boat. We had no idea how she sailed and there was no way that a single day of inspection would allow anyone to check every bit of the more-than-5000-person-hours of labour that went into this sleek looking vessel. The "Grin and Grab" p
Read more

Leaving Chinook and heading back to Canada - 49° 38' 27" N 01° 37' 00" E

By Kate and Sean -
Image
 Yep, you read correctly.  Our plans have changed, as plans often do and our 2024 is looking somewhat different from what we wrote in a previous post - A Rough Plan for 2024 .  Chinook will be left safe and sound at Port Chantereyne Marina - with her Garcia friends! We still plan to head to the UK and Ireland after Easter and will spend until mid-June cruising around, exploring the area and putting Chinook through her paces.  Our plan is to sail to Alderney, just off the coast of Normandy, on Easter Monday or Tuesday.  It is a short hop but has some major tides that can run up to 10kn so we need to time our departure well.  We bought the "Aurigny' (Alderney to the English-speakers) courtesy flag from the local chandlers here in Cherbourg We will then cross the English Channel to Portsmouth and work our way west along the coast of England to Wales and Scotland before heading south along the eastern Irish coast.  We need to be back in Cherbourg by mid-June for the 3-month warran
Read more

Garcia Boatyard - 49° 38' 48" N 01 35' 47" E

By -
Image
When we rocked up to the Garcia office for our Monday morning meeting, we couldn't help but notice that a mast-less Exploration 45 was parked outside the shed door where we had previously seen our hull parked.  Could this be o-u-r boat? Nice boat.  Could it be ours??? Marie, our project manager, confirmed that it was our boat!  Although we had come to the yard to put the Boat Show goodies that we had acquired into Garcia-provided storage, we were meeting with Christophe, the after-sales guy to go over spare parts and after-delivery emergency equipment that we were putting on our order.  We would not be getting a look ON BOARD this marvellous aluminium creature.  We would just be admiring through the meeting room window.  Our boat tour was tomorrow. The next day, we had mistakenly thought that the meeting was at 11 am, rather than the scheduled 10 am.  at 10:15 we received a text message from a puzzled Marie.  "Are you coming for the meeting?  Don't you want to
Read more