Tag: weather

Aguas Dulces after the storm

We had quite a storm here at the end of last month.

We returned today from Aguas Dulces. I normally don’t like to post lots of photos, but I think in this case they will help you appreciate its aftermath.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
From our friends’ deck. The lower right was their front yard.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Neighbor on the left: front third of house gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Neighbor on the right: no house anymore.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Meet your new front yard.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
People scurrying in and out — salvaging furniture?

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Meet your new front yard.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Meet your new front yard.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Gone.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Meet your new front yard.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Meet your new front yard. Feel lucky.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

No doubt a lot of people feeling this way. But dunes are built by wind and waves, moved and removed by winds and waves, and wind and waves have little regard for your desire to live with a view of wind and waves.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

Meanwhile, the local “council” has suspended rubble cleanup after a court order. Seems they felt they could take into their own hands the destruction and removal of private buildings (on public land — ah, complicated).

The last big storm was 31 December, 1988. Expected storm surge is up to three meters. In this storm it was five meters above normal sea level.

Design Notebook

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

On a lighter note, some imaginative decorations of other buildings in Aquas Dulces.

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016

Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, November 2016
The door on the right says NO ESTACIONAR — NO PARKING 😉

Spooky sunset

Spooky sunset, Atlántida, Uruguay

OK, Halloween was yesterday, but according to my wife, in Mexico the Day of the Dead includes today, so….

Weird weather lately. Evening yesterday we drove into Montevideo for her eye tests, for vision problems resulting from going abruptly to 3,800 meters (12,500′) when we flew to Cusco, Peru, in July. (We have lived at sea level for seven years.) Left eye: she has had damage to it before going back to 1973, but superficial, not macular “puckering” (I’m serious). For a little over USD 100 we got very sophisticated tomographic tests done with fancy image printouts. I don’t quite understand it all, but as usual — here — they hand you the results you have paid for. Just as you go away with the x-rays or MRI scans or whatever here. Because you paid for them, they’re yours. ¡Que concepto!

Halfway into Montevideo, we experienced a brutal and unusual hail storm — deafening, and no shelter to pull into. I was grateful the windshield didn’t break! But in fact the metal body of the car wasn’t dented either. So I guess it wasn’t that bad.

In the midst of it, however, I could only assume damage was being done.

And then it was over, and everything was sweetness and light again.

Beach after the storm

Our beach, after the storm that rendered it impassable a couple days ago.

Beach, Atlántida, Uruguay, after the big storm of 2016-10

Lots of trash, very wide, and where the dunes gently sloped, walls.

Beach, Atlántida, Uruguay, after the big storm of 2016-10

I didn’t walk up near the dunes, since a certain dog wants me throwing a stick into the water the entire time, but some of the cuts appear 3 m (10 ft) high.

Dead crab on beach, Atlántida, Uruguay, after the big storm of 2016-10

An unusually large dead crab — shell probably 12 cm (5″) across.

The storm hit worse, however, farther east.

October 2016 Uruguay cyclone

Fortunately our friends’ house in Aguas Dulces (Sweet Waters seems a tad ironic now) was not harmed, but it is reported that 50 houses were destroyed there. You can see one of them going down in this 12-second video).

Storm, Aguas Dulces, Uruguay, October 2016
Photo source, Aguas Dulces: “In 30 years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

If you review my photos from Aguas Dulces in June 2015, you’ll sense my fascination with previously abandoned and destroyed habitations. Building at the edge of the sea involves risk.

Our friends had recently spent about USD 10,000 to install a complex system of boulders, plastic sheeting, and sand bags in front of their place to protect it. Had they not, they might not now have their California-dream ocean-front house.

We hope to go back soon with them (invited next weekend but have to hang around here, in hope window installers will show up). Meanwhile, I think I can safely assume that the first picturesque stilted house in my little photo essay will not present another photo op.

Exquisitely dreary

From sunny t-shirt weather the last couple days to this: perfect ruination of the weekend for which two of our neighbors ventured out from Montevideo. Sometimes pouring rain, sometimes just rain. The wind has been subdued compared to prior years (2012 perhaps the worst so far).

SPOILER: this video is just three minutes of driving. Nothing actually happens. Which is actually exactly how days like this feel. (Though I did get my Kindle library organized — aren’t you excited?)

The fish place

Fish for sale in Uruguay

There is:
Corvina (drum)
Lenguado (flounder)
Merluza (hake)
Cazon (school shark)
Angelito (angel shark)
Tambera (type of corvina, I think)
Camaron (shrimp — way too much work and tiny OBTW)
Mariscos (shellfish, seafood: not sure what they mean by this)
Lisa (mullet)

We buy only the first two. The others tend to range from weird to nasty.

A summer day in winter

It appears we’re in the veranilla — couple days of “little summer” before it gets cold again. Walked the dog in a t-shirt. Had I gone to the beach, I might have worn shorts and walked barefoot. Recall that this is the equivalent of the end of February in the northern hemisphere. Should be this way tomorrow as well.

Then the forecast for the weekend is the Tormenta de Santa Rosa, which means wind — lots of wind. And rain. And Dutch pirates not attacking Lima. But that’s another story.

First frost and new growth

2016-06-09-FROST

I took this on Thursday morning. It went away quickly. Not as heavy frost as four years ago. I was thinking it too early in the year to have frost, so interesting to revisit that.

tree

This afternoon, walking a slightly different route than normal, I spotted a pine tree starting over — lots of trees were lost to fire several years ago. You have to wonder how much of the existing root system feeds this. Or did it sprout from seed in the rotting trunk? I’ll have to look more closely.