Rain, Rain, Go Away

For the past 3 months, we've more or less been living under blue skies and hot, humid weather. For the last three days, however, the Janus-like nature of tropical weather has unleashed ominously gray skies, clouds over layers of more clouds, and buckets and buckets of rain. The sky just finished having another spasm of rain a few moments ago--you would think it would have completely purged the clouds by now, but there are more layers of clouds above the others to reinforce the unnatural dullness and wetness of the world currently.

CNN predicts that former Category 1 Hurricane, current Tropical Depression, Ida, is headed up our way around Monday afternoon. The Weather Channel online also says we may get the remnants of the depression, which will kick up to tropical storm again. I have a lovely graphic below, courtesy of CNN:


I guess its meteorological karma, given that we'd had so much perfectly clear weather for so long, and a pretty quiet hurricane season. I'm just having a hard time imagining a lot more rain here. I mean, it's a tiny island--we only have so much earth to soak it all up! The Caribbean, needless to say, has been pretty stirred up the last few days, crashing in with unusual fervor. The palm trees also sway ferociously when the hard rain comes, giving the whole world the feel of a newsreel clip about a hurricane. Attendance at the school, already low this cycle due to the sluggish economy, was even lower this week because people didn't want to play rain roulette on their mopeds. (The noise level of the island has reduced significantly, since people aren't buzzing by on the aforementioned mopeds ALL the time.)

All of that said, the school is a nice, snug post from which to watch the drama. It's strange to wake up in my warm, bright room with the weather beating itself against the doors. The seasons are definitely changing here in Isla. The other day, a cloudy one naturally, it didn't get above 75 degrees. My friend and I deemed this sufficient to break out our cardigans and make some Mexican hot chocolate. Laugh if you will, but this was a pretty serious change!

Anyway, I will definitely keep you posted on what will likely be an anticlimactic ending to this mini-monsoon season. Hope you're all well, and hasta luego from soggy Isla Mujeres!