In the ITCZ

There's the end zone. The war zone. The red zone. The demilitarized zone. And then, there's the intertropical convergence zone. When you're out here, you have to become a bit of a weatherman. We've had the pleasure of knowing many meteorologists in our lives, and have been able to learn a bit from them - so that was helpful. But now, we download all that weather mumbo-jumbo from NOAA, NWS and The National Hurricane Center and have to make heads or tails of it. There is this ITCZ - and where the edge of that "zone" is, greatly impacts the weather. Right now - we're in (well almost in) right on the edge of the zone. It is just a bit north of us and that means more "convection" (not the oven). More thunder storms, some potentially big ones, can form close to the zone.

The last few nights we've had lots of thunder and lightning - luckily it's not right on top of us - but it does provide a sense of being in a cheap motel with a large blinking sign right outside your window. The big flashes at night are very bright and startling. The bad news (good news) is - we've had very little rain - so we've not been able to fill the tanks with rain water or get a lot of laundry done. We've had to run the big engine to make power to make water.

This is our first summer here in San Blas and we weren't sure what the weather would be like. It's been quite nice with the occasional rain shower and distant lightning. A few squalls have come through with some heavier wind. We've had pleasant days though - not even that hot. The bugs haven't been an issue either.

Of course, now that I've written this entry - it will be wind, squalls, non-stop rain and bugs o'plenty.

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