Diary of an emigrant

Monday, March 17, 2008

Rhythm of the Rain

It rained so much last night, and so hard, we thought the whole house would be carried away down the no-longer-so-little stream running by us. But here we are - another day, another Real. I looked up the average rainfall figures for Manaus and it looks like we're in for a total of around 300mm (what's that in inches anyway?) this month and next month. Interestingly, this doesn't influence the river level as much as you might think at first - in March the level is pretty static at around 25.5m amsl (it actually falls in the first part of the month), but we can expect a whopping 2m+ rise in April and May. So the level is determined primarily by the rainfall further upstream, which I suppose is pretty obvious when you think of it. Duh.

The practical impact of all this rain is a) my tan is fading and b) it's almost impossible to dry any clothes. So now I'm turning white again and the whole house smells of badly dried clothes (isn't that the name of a pop group or something?) Ah well, never mind