Ignorance and the Weather

Weather is rather amazing. It can be so fierce and so unpredictable. And then there are days that are really defined as "perfect". We had a perfect day yesterday. There was  sun, a slight coolness in the air, and a constant breeze.

Having come from the US, the Handlers are used to the concept of weather forecasts and predictions, not to mention that Female Handler (FH) has this thing for Jim Cantore. With all the money that goes into weather predictions, for the most part, the US forecasts are usually spot on.

The same cannot be said for Uruguayan weather models, and really the Handlers didn't expect such precision. In order to know if the day would be ideal for fertilizing or drying clothes, they look at these websites for monitoring the weather:
http://www.meteored.com.uy/tiempo-en_Colonia-America+Sur-Uruguay-Colonia-SUCA-1-13022.html
http://www.eltiempo.es/colonia-del-sacramento.html?v=por_hora

Male Handler (MH) is in charge of announcing the weather and what's in the forecast. He's no Jim Cantore but he's a close second. He takes pride in this role and really studies the forecasts, direction of the winds, how many mm of rain will fall and what hour exactly the clothes should be removed from the clothes line. FH is not really an exact person, and is just interested in the MAJOR events.

MH had mentioned last weekend that a big storm was going to arrive the early part of the week and park over the area for a couple of days. But we've had big storms before, so no big deal. Since the Handlers have no TV and really only occasionally turn on the radio, they had no idea that the rest of Uruguay was gearing up for a monster, quite similar to what is happening right now in the US northeast.

The storm did arrive Sunday night, and the rain was heavy and the winds gusty. The power flickered a bit every now and then, but for the most part stayed on.

Sunday night FH dreamed of an ambulance, and happened to mention it to MH the next morning.  MH remembers all his dreams in excruciating detail. When he questioned FH more about her dream, she just shrugged and repeated there was an ambulance in her dream.

It wasn't until Thursday when they had to go to the milk shed (i.e. the outside community) that they found out it was a mammoth storm, an extratropical cyclone (!), a huge number of Uruguayan's lost power, and many homes were damaged. Ok, so hold on here...an "extratropical cyclone" sounds on par with the Frankenmonster that's about to hit the northeast coast of the US. Ummm, not quite. Here's what wiki says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extratropical_cyclone. In fact, this storm was pretty impressive for Uruguay. Our area was under an Orange alert while much of the Atlantic coast was under a Red alert. Our casualty of the storm was a tree that fell outside the sunroom (fortunately not on the sunroom), and soggy goat bedding. Otherwise not so bad.

But having to go to the milk shed occasionally is good for the Handlers. It is their time to catch up on what's on the minds of the locals, and hear the latest gossip. The most interesting was that our neighbor just to our north had a fire, and the fire trucks raced to his farm on Sunday night...ahhhh hence the ambulance scene in FH's dream that she could not offer much explanation... while the Handlers, Keika and I blissfully slept. Indeed, the world could have ended and the Handlers wouldn't know until they ventured into town or to the milk shed which is pretty infrequent.

The "not knowing" part really made for a relaxing week for all of us!