Why the rain?

Santiago's winters are wet, cold (albeit mild compared to my home state of Iowa) and a bit depressing. Last winter it rained for days on end at times, flooding Santiago's inadequate drainage system, filling canals above their mark, leaking through people's roofs, generally making life a bit dreary.

This is all supposed to end in October, and by November blue skies (a bit hazy at times due to the smog) reign over the city. However we seem to be having some sort of relapse into a more wintery time with rain pouring down. Up higher in the mountains, peaks are covered with a fresh layer of white snow, giving anyone from the northern hemisphere a reminder of what November used to feel like.

The difference in the seasons between hemispheres has a profound effect on the sense of time. Celebrating Christmas and new years in the midst of summer heat waves is a bit confusing, it distorts any sense of time that might exist in a visitor's head. I receive emails from the US talking about the arrival of fall, and logically it seems to make sense, my birthday being in October, I was accustomed to those cold winter winds starting to blow around that time. But not now, thinks are starting to feel more and more like spring. On a recent bike ride to the Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago's central park, I found the vegetation to be in some sort of growth spurt, reaching out from their roots, showing their flowers, spurning birds to sing.

Today, that springtime sensation has been washed away by an untimely and unseasonal rainstorm. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to talk bad about the rain, it washes things clean, especially the smog, and lets me be a bit lazier than usual, guilt free.

However, winter just got over, so really, why the rain?

Colin