Weather has been very hot, still, and steamy for the past few days.  The sea is like glass and sulphur is in the air from Madame Soufriere.  A friend who is currently staying near to VC Bird in Antigua reports that they’ve been smelling it over there too!  Hopefully the trade winds will return soon and blow the fumes back out to the sea.  Residents of Isles Bay were finally allowed to return a few days ago (evacuation orders from 9 months ago lifted).  Heavy rains on Monday caused a mudflow in the Belham Valley, so hopefully all will remain safe!

 

This will be my last posting for a while as I am just about to relocate back to the States as my work contract has ended.  Will still be in the land of hurricanes, but hopefully won’t have to experience one anytime soon.  Hopefully others in Montserrat will post some news for me to follow!  Very sad to leave this magical place, but I know it’s not forever.

 

The only blip on the radar for hundreds of miles in any direction is sitting on top of us now and causing a very heavy downpour that started just over half an hour ago.  As I am typing this, a radio announcer, based in the north of the island, just said that “it looks like rain” so I’m surprised that with the severity of the downpour in Salem that it would appear that it’s dry just a few miles north!  A little thunder too.

 

Public Works has been taking down half a hillside recently for a road widening project and illegally (depending on who you believe) dumping the rocks and soil over the edge and into a streambed, which also happens to be a trail-head for one of Montserrat’s (formerly) lovely tourist attractions.  I imagine that in this kind of rain, all that loose soil is now making its way down the hillside to blanket the reefs in the sea below.

 

Concerned thoughts and well wishes are going out to those along the western Caribbean coast.

Hooray that Dean is finally disappearing, it’s sad to hear of the losses in all of the affected places, and I hope the rainfall in the mountains doesn’t cause too much mud/flood damage.

 

We had a few bursts of heavy rain, plus some thunder and lightning in the last few hours of the night.  The rain has just now tapered off and all is still and quiet except for the pattering of drips from the eaves.  A little red blip on the radar image explains the reason for this but it’s movin’ on out.

 

Otherwise, the weather has been stunningly beautiful here for the past few days with the exception of some blue haze (volcanic gas emissions) in some areas due to southerly winds on Tuesday.  Brings a bit of rotten egg smell to it, but it seems to be abating as the trade winds resume their mission.  The volcano is quiet otherwise, and effective yesterday, another tranche of residents of Old Towne were allowed to move back into their homes after 6 months evacuation.  The crazy thing is that the Vue Pointe Hotel is only being allowed to open but “without over-nighting guests” (i.e., bar/restaurant only).  I’m not sure what kind of hotel that would be to not have anyone allowed to sleep there!  Not expecting a grand opening anytime soon with that sort of restriction!

 

I had the pleasure of making my first hike to the Dry Waterfall yesterday (which was just trickling), at the beginning of Solider Ghaut deep in the mountains.  Wow, can’t believe I hadn’t been there before, it’s a well kept secret – but I don’t think it’s even a secret!  It was reminiscent of some hikes in St. Lucia (up the Canaries River) and Dominica (Sari Sari Falls).  Hopefully the weather will cooperate on Saturday as some folks make a long-awaited hike across the island via 3 mountain summits – beginning at Jack Boy Hill and ending at the MVO and expected to take most of the day.  I told my boss I might have to take Monday off as a vacation day since I’m not sure if I’ll be walking again by then…

Well, since about 2 minutes after I posted my last message it has been raining just about solidly – sometimes torrentially and otherwise just steady drizzle.  Still windy with peaks and valleys of gusts.  Someone asked me if hurricanes can impact volcanoes and the answer is yes – in laypersons language (I hope I’m getting this right) the heavy rainfall can cause mudflows (also known as lahars when taken in context of the volcano) which can destabilize the volcano and trigger further collapse of parts of the dome or slopes of the mountain.  There can be more pyroclastic flows as a result of heavy rain – indeed, some of the dome collapses that the Montserrat volcano has experienced followed periods of rain.  So far I haven’t heard of any major event at the volcano today – but it’s quite possible that there’s been some new activity.  There’s a regular update made about midday at www.mvo.ms (click on Regular Updates).  The volcano has, in general, been very quiet for the past 6+ months – and recently the Government rescinded part of the evacuation order that was made in February, which reopened parts of Old Towne to several dozen residents who had been “hoofing it” in the north all this time.

 

I hope to make my first hike to see the “dry waterfall” – which hopefully won’t be dry – sometime this week.  With all this rain, it’s likely to be slick and overgrown in there!

The current went off at home shortly before 6am, right around the time that a feeder band brought horizontal rain and some wild wind for about 20 minutes – time to button up the windows.  It has only sprinkled a little bit since then but it’s been very windy since the middle of the night.  The airport is closed – it being one of the windiest locations in the inhabited portion of the island (the airport is occasionally closed due to strong winds on “regular” days).  A lamp post in Lookout has blown over and knocked down part of the fence surrounding the tennis court up there, and there are quite a few garbage bins that have been blowing around the streets.  But its business as usual and at least there’s electricity (and therefore internet) at work!  Radio Montserrat has only been reading the NHC advisories, so it’s only through this site that I’ve heard anything from farther south this morning.  It looks from the radar like we may get some more rain again soon.  Hoping things farther south aren’t too bad, and that things much farther west won’t be too bad either.

It’s been quite breezy here today, but nothing out of the ordinary – if anything, I’m glad to have breeze because it tells me we’re not in the direct line of fire where a hot and heavy stillness pervades a place the day before a storm like this.  Quite hazy skies and a few sprinkles this morning, but it’s bright and sunny now.  Things aren’t looking too bad for Montserrat though looking at the size of Dean we do expect to get some rain and a bit more wind than usual from the outer bands tomorrow.  Enough to wreak havoc with weekend travel plans for several folks I know…but better to stay put than get half way somewhere and be stranded somewhere abysmal like VC Bird Airport.  Here’s hoping that folks in Martinique and Dominica (and particularly the lovely village of Grand Bay) are ready and braced, we are thinking of you!

 

Thanks to Barb in Brevard and others up north for sending wishes and prayers – I’m now sending them down the islands.

…Oh My!

 

Not looking so good right now, hoping that Dean will steer like a dog’s back leg (that’s what my dad used to tell me I was doing when I was daydreaming at the helm).

 

The past couple of days have been gorgeous with blue blue skies and just enough of a sprinkle at night to keep the place green.  The recent haze finally lifted and Guadeloupe is in sight from the eastern side – and one can almost see the umbrellas at Turner’s Beach in Antigua J

 

Fingers crossed.  (Well let’s hope people are getting better prepared than just crossing their digits….)

Went to bed last night to the sound of rain, woke up to the sound of rain.  I love it, perfect Sunday weather.  I wonder if it dampened the Miss Caricom International pageant that was held here last night at our beautiful new cultural centre in Little Bay.  Imagery suggests that it might stay a bit damp today, which is just fine with me, the farmers, and the forest.

Well the rainy season started a few weeks ago – here and there – but we finally got our deluge today, maybe second one this year.  It’s still going on..and off…and then on again.  After a totally gray day all day, the noise and lights started after lunch…then turned into rain just after the thunder/lightning had knocked off the power at work around 3pm…..and then I was stranded in Rams by downpour (realising that being stranded in Rams is about the last place in MNI I’d rather be).  I threw caution to the wind to get out to my vehicle (I was doused but as yet show no sign of sickness or death as predicted by the onlookers in the doorway of Rams J) and went home quietly and slowly with 4WD engaged.  Current off for a few hours, but nothing compared to the recent power outages of a few weeks ago due to the bum generators.  The noise and light have somewhat simmered down but we’ve probably had a couple of inches of rain, esp. towards the south.  Definitely a tea and more tea kind of evening….