12:24 16Aug2001 RSF-Canada blisters under "year with too much summer"

By Kanina Holmes
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Canadians, sometimes divided by regional differences, economic disparities or linguistic snits, find themselves united this summer by an uncomfortable phenomenon -- a national drought.
From Atlantic to Pacific, from the Arctic to the U.S. border, most of the world's second-largest country has been sweating through weeks of blistering heat that experts say could end up being the worst drought in decades.
"In many ways, this drought is the same tune that's being played right across the country. It's a different look, different season and different impact, but nevertheless, everybody has a water shortage problem in many parts of the country," said David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada.
Whether it's fires raging in the forests of British Columbia and Quebec, barren Prairie plains or harsh restrictions on water usage in Ontario, many will remember the summer of 2001.
"It'll be memorable for the wrong reasons I think. Too much excess and not enough normal," said Phillips.
In parts of British Columbia, water management officials say the tinderbox conditions are largely the result of last winter's record low snowfall in the mountains.
"We've had normal summer in terms of rain. But we knew back in March with the low snowpack that if we had a normal summer we were going to be in trouble," said Jim Mattison, Water Management Director for B.C's Bureau of Sustainable Resources.
But the devastation is most apparent in Canada's breadbasket, the Prairies. Many farmers, especially in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, have already written off their crops.
"I've been here since '63. I have never in my life, ever, seen anything like this," Norman Stienwand, a farmer in Castor, Alberta, told Reuters.
"IT'S BEYOND YOUR IMAGINATION"
"There's no water. The grasshoppers are so bad. It's beyond your imagination," said Stienwand who farms 1,080 hectares (2,700 acres) of grains and oilseeds and also raises beef cattle.
It has been so sweltering in his region, located about 160 km (100 miles) west of the Saskatchewan border, that some of Stienwand's farm machinery caught fire this week as he tried to bale a meager barley crop into hay for his livestock.
"It's just going to destroy a lot of farmers. They're just not going to come out of it," he said.
In June, the Alberta government declared a drought disaster to trigger emergency aid to livestock farmers struggling to feed and water their herds, and, as many of the withered and patchy crops are harvested, many analysts are already anticipating sharp reductions in yields and quality.
Last week, the Canadian Wheat Board, the marketer of western Canada's wheat, durum and barley crops, forecast a 10 to 15 percent decline in exports.
In Ontario, Canada's most populous province, prime agricultural areas have received only about 15 percent of the precipitation they would normally see.
"You wouldn't be able to fill a sardine can with the rain they've got since the twenty-second of June," said Phillips.
The drought has created ideal conditions for billions of Asian aphids to infest Ontario's soybean crop.
"I drive by and actually now I just shut my eyes and pretend I don't see it. It's just really, really, really dry," said Debbie Yuck, a farmer who lives near Ottawa and who has watched her corn whither and yellow over the past few weeks.
"When they come on (the radio) every morning and say it's a beautiful sunny day, great to be at the cottage, I think a beautiful day would a good downpour for about 16 hours," said Yuck.
Canada's largest city, Toronto, has experienced a record number of days with health alerts because of the heat and smog, with temperatures soaring as high as 37 C (99 F). Some Ontario residents now face fines for watering their yards.
An Ontario woman was recently charged for dropping incendiary material near a forest after she threw her lit cigarette butt on a road in front of a police officer.
"THE YEAR WITH TOO MUCH SUMMER"
"I wish I could come up with a word that would describe the misery and the hardship that urban and rural folk are feeling," said Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada who tracks national weather patters.
"I would describe it maybe as the year with too much summer."
The hot, dry spell could be a blow to the national economy. By the time the final bill is tallied for lost crops, aiding farmers, battling forest fires and generating more electricity, it could run into the billions.
Quebec's multibillion-dollar agricultural sector, which accounts for some 16 percent of the Canadian industry's revenues and produces 38 percent of the country's milk, has also been hard hit since early July.
In southern Quebec, where it has not rained for five weeks despite bouts of high heat and humidity, vegetable farmers have been working around the clock to save sun-ravaged crops.
"The farmers are on the edge of burn-out, they can barely stand up," said David St-Cyr, a spokesman for Quebec's powerful Agricultural Union.
The Atlantic provinces have also been caught in the oppressive heat, the result of massive high pressure systems in the United States that, for weeks, have blocked the circulation of other weather patterns trying to make their way north.
Clouds of red dust follow behind potato producers working the parched fields on Prince Edward Island, growers who may lose 25 percent of their crop. Blueberries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have shriveled to look like raisins.
"I think there are a majority of Canadians, probably, who can hardly wait for the winter. And I never thought I'd ever hear that," said Phillips.
(With additional reporting by Robert Melnbardis in Montreal and Allan Dowd in Vancouver)
((Winnipeg Reuters Bureau, 204 947-3548, fax 204 947-5167 email:toronto.newsroom@reuters.com))
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