Calm Before the Storm

Weather forecasters here have been predicting a storm that could hit some of the Hawaiian islands for a stretch of four days. They issued a flash flood watch for this period, then a day or so later they canceled the watch. Then the next day they changed their minds again.

Yesterday was incredibly hot and humid. You can always tell when it is extraordinarily humid here because your bare feet stick to the floor. As is Hawaiian custom, we don't wear our shoes in the house. Most of the flooring in our house is either a fake-wood laminate or tile. The only rooms with carpeting are the two bedrooms and office. You can also tell if it's an extra humid day by looking at the laminate floor. On humid days there is a cloudy film on it and you can see where you've stepped.

The sky looked strange yesterday, too. The clouds were not puffy and white or gray like they normally are. They were white, but they seemed thin and translucent. They reminded me of the clouds I'd seen in Maryland when it was 100 degrees with 100% humidity. To make matters worse, there were no tradewinds. I should have known then that it was the calm before the storm.

The fury started to unleash itself late last night. Tom was still up at midnight and he said the lightening started then. I woke up to the thunder about an hour after this, not realizing he had only been to bed for an hour. I kept nudging him and saying, "you've got to see the lightening. It's amazing!" He kept ignoring me. Finally he mumbled, "there was lightening when I came to bed." Then he went right back to sleep.

I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep with all this action going on. We had a lightening show that lasted for at least two hours. I watched as it illuminated our backyard jungle. I listened as the thunder boomed across the sky. And I listened to the rain hitting all the leaves. Then I waited for Noah to come to our bed, but he never did.

It poured down rain off and on throughout the night, waking us up several times. It was raining when we got up and rained all morning. A steady rain like this is not normal. Usually it only lasts up to ten minutes and then quits.

View from our kitchen window

There are several waterfalls streaming down the mountains outside our house. You can see them from the kitchen window and the lanai. The runoff stream in the backyard is so full of water that it sounds like a river. It just adds to the other various sounds we hear.

Now we can add thunder and lightening to our list of things that wake us up in Hawaii.