And the rains came down . . .

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month -- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. ... For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth."

I've realized that my roof doesn't appreciate that its job is to act as a boundary between me and the outside world. Instead it must be proud b/c it's pretty dang porous! I have buckets in my bedroom, 2 on the daybed that functions as a couch in the dining room, and all the windows are tightly closed. It has rained here each day (minus 2 days early last week) since the beginning of October. That's about six weeks people! I swear I saw some Bajans building an ark. The local weather service even issued a flood warning, and elementary and secondary schools were closed today.

I did a little research, and the November to-date rainfall total is 278mm. That's a little over 10" in 14 days (For comparison, Los Angeles's normal annual rainfall is around 310mm, or about 11"; Salt Lake City and Spokane, WA average 400mm or about 16", and OKC 900mm/35" and Amarillo 480mm/19" each year). The normal *monthly* Barbados November total is 165mm (so we're about 2x more than normal). And we are 1mm shy of having a greater monthly rainfall total than any month in 1966 - which was the all-time wettest year on record in Barbados.

So, to those of you back in the parched mid-latitudes, know that moisture abounds here in the tropics. Leave me a comment, and perhaps I'll scoop some up in a jar and mail it to ya ;)