|
Yes, friends, your eyes do not deceive you. ‘Eilat where the sun shines all year round' had an actual cloudy day. Moreover, the rare phenomenon of having water fall from the sky which, after a prolonged search of personal memory banks, Eilatis were able to identify as ‘rain', occurred on Friday evening (25.10).
Such a rarity is rain in our fair city that, upon going outside to embark on the walk to a friend's house, the anaemic water droplets I felt touch my skin I attributed to my neighbours probably watering their garden. A glance through the fence - no, no signs of life over there... A look to the ground. No, not wet. But definitely moisture gently misting my skin and hair. Thoughts - could it be going to actually rain? Unlikely. But knowing Murphy's Law, if I don't go back and take my laundry off line, it probably will. And bring down every dust mote the desert ever produced as mud onto my clean laundry! So the laundry was hastily taken in and I resumed my walk.
Once arrived at my friend's, I apologised for being late and explained that I'd been foolishly paranoid about the possibility of rain. The sentence was barely out of my mouth when my son, standing at the balcony door, yelled "Look at this!" Sliding open the door, the sound of pelting rain hit us even before we got over there to see a genuine, serious rainfall occurring. Aha! The first rainfall of the season. (And aha! Vindicated for being ‘paranoid'. And aha! Managed to get myself and what I was carrying indoors in the absolute nick of time!)
Rainfall in Eilat, for those who don't know, tends to be an all or nothing affair. Weeks or months without a drop of rain at all, and then when it does rain, it tries to make up for lost time. In the city this can mean puddles in the street and sometimes streams flowing down half the roadway which children make bets on whether they can leap over or not when crossing the street.
[Photographs by Itzik Dahan]
|
|
In the desert, however, the rains mean something else. Flowers. A bit of greenery. The desert blossoms. It sprouts gorgeous blooms that must be seen within a short period of time before they disappear forever. This doesn't happen right during the rainfall, of course, or even immediately thereafter, so don't shoot out to the desert for a look on the spot. Not only because nature's gifts don't sprout up instantaneously, but because her hazards do: Flash floods can appear within an amazingly short time and with an amazingly intense force, washing away everything in their path. Thus, anyone in a wadi when it looks like rain is well advised to seek higher ground quickly. Animals, hikers, and even cars have been swept away on occasion, and floods sometimes close the road leading to Eilat from the north.
This Friday's rainfall was only a practice run, producing 1.5 mm of rain in the hour or so it lasted. However, it made up for the lost drama by creating thunder and lightning to give us a proper thunderstorm and usher in the season. The temperature dropped to 20 degrees, according to the press. It was quite ironic to be in summer garb sweating up the hill, and then an hour later trudging through puddles and wishing for a jacket on the way back down it.
Eilat's streets were spared from becoming ‘canals', although the Ketura junction north of Eilat was closed to traffic for a short period. Temporary ‘lakes' were created in areas of the middle and southern Arava, which were photographed by Itzik Dahan who was in the region.
(Photographs courtesy of Eilatredc).
|
