Black Rapids to Little Mud Lake

by Phil Chadwick

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Dimensions

18.000 x 14.000 x 0.875 inches

Title

Black Rapids to Little Mud Lake

Artist

Phil Chadwick

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

We were quietly enjoying the weather crossing Singleton Lake in mid-September. We have a superb view to the west. At 5:14 pm EDT, my friends on the Severe Weather Desk of the Ontario Storm Prediction Centre issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning saying a " line of severe thunderstorms is located from Black Rapids to Little Mud Lake, moving east at 35 km/h." That location very accurately described the skyscape that we were watching precisely at that moment. I thought that I had better record those clouds in oils as my personal observation of severe convection.

What really caught my attention is that almost no one except us would know "Little Mud Lake". The name aptly describes the body of water on the northern edge of our Singleton Sanctuary. It is a pretty little lake that is about 5 feet deep with water. There must be at least 30 feet of mud or more beneath that water but I have no way of knowing for certain. I just know from personal experience that the mud just seems to go on forever. Little Mud Lake and the surrounding marshes are home to lots of nature that I endeavour to protect.

I had been watching the Watertown radar. A west-to-east parade of thunderstorms had lined up through Singleton toward Brockville and then into New York State south of Ogdensburg. Training of these thunderstorms was a very good possibility and well worth the warning. These heavy rain events are very tricky to get perfect as even a slight shift in the path of the convective cells can greatly diminish the accumulations at any one location.

There was a swath of bright cloud low on the western shore of Singleton. The lower half of this cloud was drifting toward the northeast. The upper half of the connected cloud was shearing turbulently toward the southeast. The rest of the sky was full of convective elements and subtle variations in colour. The image was from 5:40 pm and the heavy rain began at about 5:50 pm.

We did not observe any flooding or damage but then again, I did not go looking. We did receive 23 mm of rain with this unusual system although that is not warning criterion which is 50 mm in an hour. Torrential rain fell for maybe 30 minutes. If the rain had continued for the full 60 minutes at our location, we would have certainly received the predicted severe accumulation of 50 mm of rain - about two inches.

This welcomed rainfall would increase the current through Jim Day Rapids and create an endless swimming pool. It takes about six days for the rainfall in this drainage basin to percolate through the Gananoque Waterway System to reach the Marble Rock dam and then into the St Lawrence. I very much enjoy but cannot control the speed of the current in my endless swimming pool.

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October 20th, 2022

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