Hurricane Matthew wreaking havoc

Today’s column is, unfortunately, about the weather.

But what do you expect the topic to be in Saskatchewan at this time of year? The main topics of discussion in October always seem to be (a) the Riders, (b) the state of the crops and (c) the weather.

You might even want to add (d) “Trudeau” to that list, too, after his carbon-pricing announcement.

But mainly, you can never get away from the chatter about “(c) the weather,” whether you want to or not.

The talk at this time of year always seems to be about “whether or not it will snow.”

You know what I mean. You’ll be standing in line at the supermarket or in Tim Hortons, and the people in line will chatter with their doom-filled predictions about what it’s like outside. This is particularly true on overcast days, when locals point to the clouds and say “it’s gonna snow! It’s gonna snow!” 

This always bugs the heck out of me, because these predictions are usually ill-informed and total speculation. It’s almost as if these people want the snow to come, so they can have yet another thing to complain about.

Well, we got more doom-filled predictions about snow last Sunday.

Except, this time the predictions actually came true. The advisories were out informing Saskatchewan residents that were going to get a big dump of snow Tuesday and Wednesday across the province.

“Oh, great,” I said. Among other things, I was supposed to hit the road to attend a big conference in mid-week. It was the “Reconciliation and the media” conference in Saskatoon where we were going to discuss ways to improve coverage of indigenous people in the media in Saskatchewan.

I didn’t have a particular issue with the snow itself. I can handle that. What I had issues with was the messed-up road conditions on the way to and from Saskatoon. The last thing I needed was for roads to be closed due to “travel not recommended” warnings, especially when I needed to get to an important conference on the important topic of news coverage of indigenous people.

The good news was Highway 16 wasn’t closed. The bad news is it probably should have been. The visibility was terrible, and it took forever to navigate through the slush on the roads to get to and from Saskatoon. Moreover, because I knew in advance that the roads were going to be so bad, I set my alarm to get up way early in the morning just to make it to the conference.

Not only that, I had to navigate past all the power outages and traffic light malfunctions that had hit Saskatoon that morning. Then, on top of that I had to find parking at the University of Saskatchewan, which is notorious for parking shortages when classes are in session.

So, yeah, I had a fun time on the roads Wednesday. There’s never a dull moment living in Saskatchewan.

What was particularly hilarious about the conditions was the way our media reacted to it. They were treating this snow dump like it was a blizzard or something. Folks, I know about blizzards, and this was not a blizzard.

This was simply a lot of snow — on Oct. 5, 2016.

Yikes. I’ve experienced snow dumps in October before, but not one this big, this early.

The one thing I have tried to do is keep things in perspective. Yes, we got a lot of snow. Yes, it sucks. But it’s not as if we were getting hit by a hurricane.

While Saskatchewan residents had to deal with all the doom-filled weather forecasts about the snow last week, several countries down in Hurricane Alley were dealing with Matthew, a monstrous hurricane that was Category 4 when it hit land in the Caribbean.

The west coast of Haiti, eastern Cuba and the Bahamas were pummeled by this storm, which caused flooding, power outages and a few deaths.

Meanwhile, I tuned in to the live streaming coverage from Miami TV stations as Matthew made its way towards the east coast of Florida.

For those who don’t know, Miami hurricane coverage is great. These stations really get into it. Prior to the storm hitting, they cover press conferences where officials warn the public that the hurricane is coming. Then they cover the lineups at the gas stations and the supermarkets, as people stock up on their way out of town.

Back in the studio, weather forecasters are live on the air with radar and satellite images, and official hourly updates on the storm track.

Then, when the hurricane hits, these stations send their people out to the coasts to cover the storm. When the storm hits landfall, they show their reporters getting blown around and drenched, live. Exciting stuff.

The irony is that people in the actual hurricane zone don’t get to actually watch this exciting coverage on TV. That’s because the power has been knocked out and everyone is evacuated.    

I kept a close eye on the hurricane’s path, mainly to figure out which potential winter getaway vacation destinations were going to be hit.

“Whew, the Dominican Republic dodged a bullet there. It sounds like Jamaica didn’t take too bad a hit, either. Too bad about the Bahamas.”

The positive news is that this hurricane missed a lot of vacation destinations and resorts. Good. 

I thought I would share that with you because it is easy for Saskatchewan people to lose perspective and say “woe is us” at this time of year.

October weather in Saskatchewan is always foreboding, unpredictable and even annoying.

But I’d rather have our unpredictable fall weather than the unpredictable fall weather in the tropics any day.

Besides, there is one good thing about this fall cool-down that I have noticed: no more mosquitoes.

There is a bright side to October, after all.