Weather You Like It Or Not!

That's right - WEATHER!

You can't escape it.

It might be the sun and the wonderful breeze - or maybe a bolt of lightning, a crack of thunder and a tropical downpour.  Here, all of those things have greater relevance to what you do day-to-day, or when you do it.

So, the geekish person I am, I bought a weather station.  I know, if you want to know the weather, look outside - and I do that - in fact for the most part we live outside.  But I want to know - just how hot is it - just how much rain did we get yesterday - i was freezing last night, how low did the temperature go?

It is a great device - sits on a pole in the garden and measures temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction and rainfall.  It feeds it all to the internet where the history is stored.  AND, because I am a generous person, I can share it with everyone on Weather Underground.

So if you want to see what the weather is in Ojochal right now, take a peek at My Weather Station. Scroll down and you can see the history for the last week.

Or click on the Forecast for Osa link - it usually says the next 10 days are sunny and 33C!

Storm of the Century?

Lisle is in Ojochal at the moment, and we were chatting last night around 5.  He said it was really getting dark and starting to rain - low heavy clouds.

He texted shortly after that the power was out and the winds were crazy.

Something really dramatic happen -

reports of a tornado in the village - trees down all over

People still without power after 24 hours.

Lisle just shared photos of our property.

Giant trees from the valley behind us have crashed onto the lower area of the lot!

We have had trees fall before and the noise is outrageous, but Lisle said the storm was so intense he heard nothing.  He didn't know anything was wrong until he was standing at the kitchen window and thought the treeline looked odd - he went to look and found the mess - - fortunately no damage to the house!

Time for a chainsaw!

Strange Things - Part 2

Photo taken from the neighbours place looking over the Pacific

SCARY!!

Strange Things

Some things are just too freaky - makes you wonder if the end really is near!

Costa Rica gets rain - lots of it - - where our house is we get about 20 feet of rain a year (compared to Toronto which gets less than 3 feet of precipitation).  And storms can be harsh, torrential.

But this week there were two tornadoes outside San Jose - one on Tuesday and one on Thursday - unheard of!

Then, our friends sent these photos - two snakes seeking a nest of birds just above the house - CREEPY.

Cloudy With Chance of ...

Seems that everywhere, the conversation is about the weather!

In Toronto it is about the heat, humidity, cold, wind chill, rain - everyone is on about it, usually in a constant state of complaint.  Understandably, since navigating the asphalt and concrete, the subway and streetcar in anything but the nicest of cool breezy sunny days can be hell!

So here, the topic is the same, but the conversation is very different.

There is talk about the storm last night, marveling at the lightning show and the sound of the thunder.  There is discussion of the gathering clouds over the ocean and whether it is going to be a stormy night or a rainy day tomorrow.  There is talk about the warmth of the rain and the smell of ozone following a tropical downpour.

Those of us in Phase 9 discuss if the rain is too heavy to get back across the river - if the rain is coming from the mountain we can be in trouble - unless it is just REALLY heavy and then is doesn't matter where it is coming from.

We talk about the colour of the sky and the clouds as they gather around the mountains.

We talk about the hue of the ocean and the clarity of the horizon

We talk about the micro-climates - how it can rain in Ojochal but not in Uvita - how it rains on that side of the ridge but not this - how we can watch the storm sweep up the valley and into the valley beyond the ridge to the north, and when it is done you can see the ribbon waterfall.

So right now, it is gently raining - wouldn't know except for the ripples in the pool.  The sky above is grey and the horizon is clear - maybe a colourful sunset through the rain like the other night - check these out!!