Waiting for the weather to change -

I went looking for a chart like the one above to see if my perception of our weather holds true under the statistics,  the facts.  The closest location to the house I could find were the numbers for Nova Friburgo.  Our house is about 10 Kilometers from Friburgo and about 150 meters higher.  Temperature wise we are a little cooler and I would think it is close to the average numbers above, but we are more humid – humid does not measure in the precipitation numbers…. just in the ‘it feels cold and damp’ feelings.   I think that this year it has been even dryer than normal in July and August.  Our garden is looking decidedly – well dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The small inset is from January when we were in the middle of rainy season.  Now the whole yard on the west side of the house has lost all its grass.   We will either have to re-plant and soon or take a chance that once the heavy rains of November and December start, the soil will wash away.  In the ten years I have lived up here full time, I’ve never seen the grass look this bad.  I would say that our rainy season wasn’t as whet as usual leaving the grass (and trees) in a weakened position before the dry and hot sun of August arrived.  When we left for Rio this morning, it wasn’t raining, but we were in a whet fog.  The rains may hold off for another month but this light moisture may help restore the grass. 

This last week we went from higher than normal September temperatures, with bright direct sun, low humidity; each day cooling a bit, clouds building each day, to the whet fog of this morning, giving us hope that rain, measurable amounts of rain will come soon.   

Sunrise promising another clear, hot day in late Winter. (September in Brasil = March in the northern hemisphere.)

and the next day’s sunrise brings more moisture, clear mid-day skies and

 

 

by late afternoon, rain threatening at the end of the valley but not making it up to our dry garden.  

One thing we can be sure of in Brasil the dry season comes to an end and the rains start….. guaranteed.

 

The night the sky fell, and the mountain began to flow to the sea …

Camillo and I have been told more than once that we live a charmed life.  After Tuesday night, I am becoming a believer. 

At 11: pm, another thunderstorm began to move through, and like I had done for the past 4 nights, and off and on through the days, I turned off the computers, unplugged everything including the internet connection, and at midnight we went to bed.  At 12:30 Wednesday morning the lights began to blink so  I closed my book and turn them off as thunderstorm continued to rumble through.  At 2am, the lights went off and came back on (the alarm clock starts blinking and woke me up), at 3 am, they went off again and stayed off.  It was totally black, the street lights apparently off also.  A total neighborhood blackout.

 

The lightening flashed, the wind howled, the rain pounded on the roof, and I slept. 

 

When I got up Wednesday morning I made my coffee, life was normal; no electricity – which meant no internet and no phones but in the summer rainy season this is normal.  It would be a quiet morning.  I  took my coffee out on the veranda to greet the day and before me the land showed ugly welts of red, stripped of trees and grass, as far as I could see from one edge of the veranda to another the mountains had slipped and made a run toward the sea.  All around us. 

By the time we were through with breakfast the neighbors began to come by.  We started to hear the stories.  Lucia, our maid, had lost her home, her daughter’s was also gone. The road below us and back to Lucia’s house was impassible,  The road to Lumiar and to Mury were both closed; and the mountains were still coming down.  Our neighborhood was closed to the outside world.

By noon we knew that four family members of the workers had been lost.   We learned that Lucia’s daughter had also a broken leg and the daughter had been carried on a wooden door taken from the rubble; out by foot through the forest and down the mountain to Mury and then helicoptered to Cachoeira de Macacu for surgery.  A young boy who lost his parents also had a broken leg and was carried out by his neighbors.  Cars could not get in or out but motorcycles could and they did; in and out, up and down, checking on family members, bringing in necessities, finding ways around the slides and keeping us all informed.  Off and on all day we were checked on and updated on the news.  We heard of Friburgo: with no communication with the outside world we were informed by word of mouth, all of you knew more about what was happening than we did.

On Thursday morning we knew that the death toll was upward of 100 in Friburgo and that recovery would be slow; all of Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis were involved, resources where being stretched, collections were being taken to help cloth and feed those who’d lost everything.  By Afternoon the death toll was climbing to 200.  Raphael took phone number of Camillo’s family to try and get messages out that we were okay.  We were ask by the gardener’s sister if we needed anything from town; they were walking down to town and carrying food back.  We were fine.

Our house had no damage.  We had food in the cupboards and in the Freezer.  I was low on coffee – good heaven I couldn’t ask Manuel’s sister to carry me coffee up the mountain.  As soon as the roads opened we had another home to go to – one with electricity and internet, and air conditioning if we want it.   Yes, we live a charmed life. 

On Friday we went through our closets and gave two bundles of cloths; we cleared out the freezer of the foods that would need to be cooked that day and sent it down to Manuel and his family.  We bought a ticket to Rio and spent 5 hours a little anxious about traveling down the mountain.  All around us was chaos and we lived on – our charmed life.

		Friburgo / Mury landslides 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

MY Town Friday – Black and Orange

Today the air was warm and heavy with the promise of rainy season.  The trees and grasses are brown after nearly a month without a drop of rain.  This is a good topic for the month of October – Halloween and Fall colors in the northern hemisphere.  Not a really good topic / or colors for this time of year in Nova Friburgo – really not good colors for anytime of year around here.  The colors for here are reds, yellow, pink and purples.   

But in the true spirit of our Shoot-out, I searched through my flowers archives and found these photos that had both Black and Orange …. disclaimer - neither one of the first two was taken in Friburgo – one was a new-year’s eve photo taken up into a tree in Macae, and the other out in front of a restaurant in Sicily, yes Italy and neither is even the right time of year.   The last one is a caqui (persimmon) on one of our trees in the garden – taken around June as the leaves finally turn to fall colors here in the tropics. 

FSO - Transitions

Sometimes the change of seasons in Brasil is not obvious.  We slide easily from Winter to Spring into Summer, sliding past Fall and back into Winter.  There is not much variation in temperatures, only the changes in the amount of rainfall marks the seasons here.  And with the rain or dry, follows the fog and the bright sunlight and these changes are what gives us our seasons.

This year we had a very early in the fall,  very cool temperatures – to me it seemed different how early on in June it felt cold.  Don’t laugh at me because 10c - 13c or 50f –55f does feel cold up here in fog.  

The trees bloom in different colors at different time of year, and if you can keep track of the season it is possible to remember that the purple is spring, the orange flower is Summer, the bright pink is winter. 

This year we actually had fall colors.  I first saw them from the bus window coming from Rio – these colors were so unusual that once in Friburgo I went in search of the tree with either the bright yellow flowers or leaves.  This year’s weather has been so confused that the faux Cherries were in full bloom in mid June instead of early July.   Today it is sunny and warm – almost 20c (68) perfect weather for lunch on the veranda.  It feels like we are in the transition zone between winter and spring and not even the weather knows what will happen next.

  

My Town Friday Shoot-out – Weather during the Christmas season

If you Google for weather in Nova Friburgo, you will find that this is not the best time to visit. For me it is not Christmassy in the least. There is not much variation in the temperatures nor in the amount of rain each day. The Chart below is about Nova Friburgo proper, up at our house at a 1000 meter or 3000 feet, the temperatures are about 3 degrees cooler and the rain much heavier/fog more constant.


5-Day Forecast December. 10 - 14

Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
23° C 20° C 74° F 68° F	27° C 20° C 81° F 68° F	28° C 21° C 83° F 70° F	29° C 20° C 85° F 68° F	23° C 19° C 74° F 66° F

 

  You can wake to the sound of rain, go to bed at night to the sound of rain and thunder and when not fully raining there is mist in the air that leaves trees and flowers covered in moisture. Dripping endlessly. The average rainfall for the months of November, December and January are 6.7, 9.4 and 8.2 inches respectively for a total of more than 50 inches a year. The Rainy Season = the Christmas season.

 

 

 

 

 

All this humidity brings swollen rivers and mud slides.  If a road is going to collapse it will be at Christmas time. One year when we were up here visiting from the States for Christmas, we drove into Friburgo for supplies the day after and found the city covered in about a foot of mud. The river that runs through central filled with a mud slide up in the hills and barreled down through town overflowing the banks, inundating the whole town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The advantage is when the sun is out the colors of the forest is GREEN and the colors of the flowers vibrant.