Bob explains the weather

My uncle Bob and I are standing on the roof of his ranchhouse on a cold Novermber afternoon. Up here we can see in all directions, there is chill in the air. To the west we look. "In the morning, you come up here and the sun his them so's they are all pink while the rest of the ground is still dark," he explains. We look east, "and from there, that land is flat as a baby's ass all the way to Ontario." We look north, to see the city of Calgary which unfolds over the land. Here you can see the approach of civilization, the thrust of the earth's custs collide into sharp mountain, and the flatlands of big open sky. It's like we are on the cusp of many different worlds here. To see the flat land suddenly rupture into daggar-like peaks is something you do not experience in cities. Or the open, golden fallow fields of grass that suddenly give way to a city. It is why the weather changes so dramatically here. Standing on the roof my uncle explains:

"If the wind come from the north, you know it's gonna be cold as hell and really dry. If the winds are from the east, which happens in the spring, you get cold and wet which means a lot of snow. From the south, you get the warm winds coming up from the desert, and from the west you'll get the Chinooks blowing down from the mountains - and then you never know what might happen. So one day you are shoveling off two feet of snow in minus twenty winds and in the afternoon you're having a beer in your shorts on the back deck."

I feel lucky to be privvy to this kind of knowledge that only someone who lives here can impart.And we just stand there for a while on the roof, the wind swirling.