Daily Archives: September 17, 2010

It Doesn’t Just Rain Here

As my readers know it’s the rainy season here in Panama and we’ve been getting more than our share this year. New records for rainfall being set nearly every month.

Last January I wrote a post about fog. Up here at 2,600 feet overlooking the Pacific Ocean we often encounter the phenomenon of “up slope fog” which forms when winds blow air up a slopeĀ  (called orographic lift), adiabatically (occurring without loss or gain of heat) as it rises, and causing the moisture in it to condense. This can happen at any time of the day and we get plenty of it here. One minute it will be clear and sunny and the next thing you know you can’t see the far side of your yard. And then, a few minutes later it will be clear again.

This is what it was like a couple of days ago just after noon time.

It lasted like this for about 20 minutes then disappeared. THEN it started to rain…LOL. When it did start raining we had thunder and lightning like I haven’t seen here before and while friends not far away lost their electricity for several hours for once this house was spared that irritation.

We had several more episodes of fog during the day and on into the night. The street lights on the dirt road that passes by the house were eerie yellow dots in the distance in contrast to the fire flies blinking brilliance and I can only imagine what driving must have been like for those out on the narrow, twisting two-lane carreterra heading down to David.

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