Rainy season

On the coast of Washington, a popular topic of conversation is the weather – when will the rain stop? Here in Namibia, the question is when will they start? The common weather pattern is for intermittent rain showers to begin in November, with fairly steady rains between January and March. In 2006, the summer rains were apparently quite heavy: There is an amazing set of pictures displayed in the Post Office, showing flooded roads, parks, houses, vehicles. “Rivers” that most years are literally streams of sand were cascading water. And of course lovely shots of clouds and rainbows. In contrast, 2007 was a drought year (the first drought of the millennium), and 2008 is also unfolding rather drily. We experienced our first rainstorm Jan. 5 – an easily-visible discrete patch of torrential downpour, straight grey lines between clouds and brown hills. We watched it come miles away, as we splashed in the Olympia swimming pool. First, the clouds gather together. Then, the wind picks up to a howl, as the air is forced away from distant rain. Then, large drops begin to fall, and finally the curtain arrives. Or not. The rain is remarkably patchy, pouring in one neighborhood while leaving another dry. The rains tend to fall in the evening, and the lightning after dark can be spectacular from our high perch, for instance crackling down in a jagged bolt or illuminating the grey rain against the black sky. Katie has declared that she doesn’t like lightning, But she knows that her parents find it fascinating!

In this dry country, the rains serve as the limiting resource for production, so their arrival is very important. In the past several weeks, we have witnessed the power of moisture. Recall, in week 2, that our drive to the coast was gauntleted by warthogs and baboons. Less than half of the trees had any leaves on them. Last week, on the same drive at the same time of day, we observed zero warthogs and baboons (no statistics needed). On our return trip (1/27), almost all trees had leaves, and the highway was gauntleted by flowers – yellow ones like buttercups, purple ones like lupine, and white ones like lilies. Pools of standing water have accumulated. Presumably, the animals have plenty of food and forage deep into the bush and no longer need to take advantage of roadside vegetation. Even the rocky, sandy piles around our apartment building have sprouted small acacias, blooming and fruiting so fast that we already know this particular species produces very prickly fruits!

The country looks green. Okay, you say, you’ve been away from rainy western Washington so long that your “green meter” has re-set. Anything that’s not simply red sand looks positively verdant. This is probably somewhat true, but we also have enough semi-quantitative evidence to know that we’re witnessing a change in season. The dripping 34C heat of our arrival has moderated to the mid-20s (but wet clothes still dry on the line in a matter of hours!). Similarly, our first days here were entirely cloud-free, just a brilliant blue day-sky and incredible stars at night. We’ve hardly seen any stars recently. Bare trees are leafing out and flowering; seeds are germinating in previously bare patches of ground. Where we were accustomed to patches of tall brown clumps of grass, we now see green new growth (and so do the cows, who will undoubtedly fill out a bit). To top it all off, we awoke Friday morning on the coast to the sound of water dripping through the roof! The coast typically gets 2 mm of rain annually, and this one rain shower must have exceeded the average – not to mention the capacity of the roof. (We were at a B&B, just waking up to go explore some rocky intertidal sites.)