Extreme weather as the risk story of the summer

 

Zipline facility destroyed by wind storm July 26. photo: Ottawa Citizen online

A summer of extreme weather has presented new and perhaps even unforeseen hazards to operators across Canada and United States. Eastern provinces and states experienced record high river levels with a big snowmelt, rain and a warm spring. Mountain provinces saw record flood levels that took out bridges, roads, and in some cases entire towns. Back east, a series of July thunderstorms levelled forests and again destroyed roads.

All of this forced operators to define, on the fly, when is too much weather too much.
As water levels slowly crept up, river companies had to decide to go at impending flood levels or cancel trips outright. Mountain towns like Canmore essentially shut down for a couple of weeks to weather and then clean up flooding - people could not get in or out of town, let alone out to the field on secondary or mountain roads. Event organizers such as mountain bike or road race promoters found themselves with destroyed venues or having to cancel due to impending severe weather.

The incrementalism is what is interesting here. While a destroyed road is a clear signal, rising water levels are less so - the slow creep makes it tempting to risk a trip; likewise with weather reports - when do you play it conservative just in case severe weather lands and when is that just something the guide is expected to deal with? All of these items were more or less localized phenomenon, but added up over the summer shows a violent weather trend in both frequency and severity. Operators will need to put more thought into go/no go decision criteria, and in the future weigh the weather more heavily in their decision making.