Rainy season

“ In the spring, when the dry season set in and no rain for seven months, and fields dried up with a dusty brown, he fled to the tops of the mountains to browse on the leaves of the trees to support life until the next rainy season commenced. ”

“ We have no lasting rainy season, although rain falls more frequently then than in the summer months, but it rarely lasts longer than a day, and then the cloudless blue sky gleams pleasantly over us again. Frost is rare and trifling; but sometimes it sets in towards morning, and will last a whole day if accompanied by a wind blowing down from the northern Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Rain only falls during the autumn, winter, and spring, when it sometimes descends with great violence: the greatest quantity, and that which properly constitutes the rainy season, happening between the autumnal equinox, or somewhat later, and the beginning of December; during which period, heavy clouds often obscure the sky, and several days of violent rain sometimes succeed each other with winds. ”

“ During the rainy season at the beginning of Autumn is the greatest risk from water. When it begins to rain all the hands should go out with picks and shovels and clear out the drains so that the water may flow off into the roads, and the crops be protected. ”

“ In such country as this, it would be plagiarism to attempt to describe what has so often been described before. The rainy season, compared with that of more favoured parts of the world, appears as little short of a drought; and a drought here, similarly compared, might well be classed as "hell let loose." ”

“ Our rainy seasons, however, do not consist of deluges of rain that overflood the country, but of daily showers, occurring in the early part of the afternoon, lasting an hour or two, leaving the sky bright and clear, the air cool for the rest of the twenty-four hours, comfortable to man, and favorable to luxuriant vegetable growth. ”

“ If I look around me, the cloudless, deep blue sky, the warm colouring of the trees, the masses of red which overtop the tall grass, and the haze rising from the parched ground and spreading upwards like a cloud in the horizon, all tell me that the dry season has returned. ”

“ It rays out and draws to it some floating films from secret cañons. Rain begins, "slow dropping veil of thinnest lawn;" a wind comes up and drives the formless thing across a meadow, or a dull lake pitted by the glancing drops, dissolving as it drives. Such rains relieve like tears.
The same season brings the rains that have work to do, ploughing storms that alter the face of things. These come with thunder and the play of live fire along the rocks. They come with great winds that try the pines for their work upon the seas and strike out the unfit. ”

“ But any day the wind might come down from the north, keen and thick and white about the summits, and leave the flowers and the cony slide covered deep beneath a drift.
Spring, summer, and autumn are all one season, all crowded together—a kind of peak piercing for a few short weeks the long, bleak, unbroken land of winter here on the roof of the world. ”

“ In summer, when the heat has been very great, the rain is often ushered in by a thunder-storm, and falls in torrents, which at an earlier season would do harm to the young buds and blossoms of spring; but now the vegetation is strong enough to resist the floods so necessary to maintain moisture in the parched earth. ”

“ The afternoon was drawing to a close, and still the rain came down in steady and persevering drops, every drop falling in a decided and obstinate way, as if conscious, though it might be ever so unwelcome, no one had a right to oppose its coming. A rainy day in midsummer is a glorious thing. The grass looks up so green and grateful under the life-giving moisture ”

“ This is what in Scripture is termed the early or the former rain. Showers continue to fall at uncertain intervals, with some cloudy but more fair weather, till toward the vernal equinox, when they become again more frequent and copious till the middle of April. These are the latter rains, Joel ii, 23. From this time to the end of May, showers come on at irregular intervals, gradually decreasing as the season advances; the sky being for the most part serene, and the temperature of the air agreeable, though sometimes acquiring a high degree of heat. ”

“ Upon the first sprinkling of rain the chasms are filled up, and the whole country resembles dry garden-mould newly dug up. As the sun advances the rains increase; there is no time to be lost now; this is the season for sowing ”

“ This succession of the seasons is as regular and distinct as our winter and summer. The effect of the long dry season corresponds in some respects to our winter, giving vegetation a rest. Europeans delight in the dry season, although towards the last they long for the rain. ”

“ Not unfrequently in a moist summer season, after a day of showers or rain, which have had an extending formation or lateral extension from north to south, it will commence blowing in the morning, and encourage the hay-maker with the hope of fine weather. ”

“ It is generally believed, we have not had a rain for several years so beneficial in its consequences as the late one, taking into consideration the season, the dry state of the ground and the quantity fallen. ”

“ Will set the traveller on his way;
But an evening gray and a morning red
Will pour down rain on the pilgrim’s head.
A greenish color of the sky near to the horizon, often shows that we may [Pg 157] expect more wet weather. The most beautiful and varied tints are seen in autumn, and in that season the purple of the falling leaf is often a sign of a continuation of fine weather.
When the clouds become more colored than ordinary, and particularly when red prevails, it sometimes indicates an east wind.
Cocks, when they crow at unwonted hours, often foretell a change of weather. ”

“ It was the tail-end of the monsoon season, and the air was heavy and sticky with tropic moisture, the sky a florid, leaden muss of formless clouds. The rugged land was swathed with cloud-banks and squall wreaths, through which headlands and interior peaks thrust darkly. ”

“ As we progress towards the interior the wet season appears to have been of less duration and the fall of rain less, yet the great heat has forced the vegetation towards maturity, and many of the grasses have already ripened their seeds, while there are many other indications of the dry season having fairly set in; the wind is steadily from the south and south-east, and is very dry ”

“ The rains always occur in the afternoon and usually cease before dark. At this time, too, all nature takes on a beautiful shade of green which replaces the rather dull landscape of the dry season. There is also a brisk, electric condition of the atmosphere that is decidedly exhilarating and a good tonic. ”

“ With scarcely a perceptible difference between summer and winter you wear the same clothing and sleep under the same covering the year round. The average annual rainfall is about ten inches, with an average of thirty-four rainy days in the whole year. ”

“ During the whole of the dry season, scarcely ever more than three days or a week passes without a slight thunderstorm and heavy shower, which comes on about four in the afternoon, and by six has cleared off again, leaving the atmosphere delightfully pure and cool, and all vegetable and animal life refreshed and invigorated. ”

“ Now, however, it is different; a rainy day in autumn is so cold and disagreeable. It settles down to work in a business-like way—not like a summer shower, which has, all through, a hint of the sun behind the clouds. No, an autumn rain is chilly and gray and lasting, and the best way to forget it is to find something interesting to do indoors. ”

“ During the dry season on the coast, the rains are experienced in the interior of the country and lofty range of the high table-lands,—especially in the months of January, February, and March, when the rain that falls inland is often very heavy, and, on the most elevated regions, it is not unfrequently alternated with snow and hail. ”

“ It is not heat and cold, but wet and dry, which mark the seasons, and the winter months, instead of killing vegetation, revive it. The dry season makes a period of consecutive drought, the only winter in the vegetation of this country, which can hardly be said at any time to cease. ”

“ Round about a Spring in Winter. We dwellers in the northern hemisphere naturally think of winter as cold, and shudder at the idea of plunging into the water at this season. The common demand is, if cold must be endured, let it at least be rid of moisture. But all animals are not of this way of thinking. To avoid the cutting blasts of the north wind, the stinging sleet, the pelting hail, and driving snow, many a creature boldly plunges in or hovers about the sparkling waters of every bubbling spring. ”

“ Many other forests in the tropics, where the rainfall is less, or less regularly distributed, are not unlike our own, having rather regular periods of leaf-fall that come with the dry season rather than with the autumn. ”

“ It must be a subject of great satisfaction and confidence to the husbandman to know at the beginning of a summer, by the certain evidence of meteorological results on record, that the season, in the ordinary course of things, may be expected to be a dry and warm one, or to find, in a certain period of it, that the average quantity of rain to be expected for the month has fallen. ”

“ The wind was blowing very freshly above, but here it was quite calm and mild. One might have thought the season to be spring, or even summer, for all signs of winter, such as mud, bare trees, and stunted grass, were left behind. ”

“ All summer long the out-of-door gardens kept us busy, planting, weeding and watering. When we had had a week or two of sunshiny weather we began to wish a cloud would sail over the blue sky and bring the rain our thirsty flowers needed. ”

“ The dead-flat expanse of the Northern plains is unbroken by the most insignificant of mounds; on the other hand, in the hills it is almost impossible to find ten yards of level ground. In the same way during the dry season you know with absolute certainty that there will be no rain; whilst during the rains you can predict, without the faintest shadow of doubt, that the downpour will continue day by day. Personally, I prefer whisky and water mixed. ”

“ When several such storms are repeated in the same year, we may have a total rainfall of three or four times the ordinary average.20144 Such seasons appear to recur six or seven times in each century, and it is clear that, according as the meteorologist happens to include or exclude such a season in his data, the figures expressing the average must vary very largely. Inasmuch as plant life is regulated by the ordinary conditions of temperature and moisture, we are less liable to error in taking the results which exclude exceptional seasons. ”

“ The rains for five months, from the middle of October to the middle of March, are almost incessant, and often accompanied by tremendous thunder and lightning. The winds prevalent at this season are from the south and southeast, which usually bring rain. Those from the north to the southwest are the harbingers of fair weather and a clear sky. ”

“ If it be the summer season the very air seems filled with a golden haze. In leaving the mountains all freshness is left behind. Trees and fields are yellow with drouth, which lasts from April to November. ”

“ During the fine weather, the prospects attainable from this elevated situation much more than compensate for any disadvantage, but there is a season of rains in which it is completely enveloped in mist, and in which the clouds penetrate through every aperture. ”

“ As the warm season advances in summer, and evaporation from the earth is less than the rainfall, there is less and less moisture in the air, when, of course, the conditions for cloud formation, especially inland, are not so favorable as in the early spring or summer. Frequently there comes a time when we have a long season of dry, settled weather. ”

“ Even the heavy rain- bearing clouds which sweep inland during the wet season — that is, when the sun approaches the zenith, from November to March — do not break till they strike against the heights rising above the tablelands and terraces of the interior. ”

“ The air, during the dry season of the year—seven to nine months—is devoid of moisture; the regular northwest trade winds are robbed of all moisture while passing over the snow mountains, where it is condensed and falls as snow ”

“ Our journey so far has been very satisfactory: we are most fortunate as regards the season, for there has been more rain this winter than has been known for the last four or five years. ”

“ These springs are not what are known as surface springs—that is, the residue of a former exceptionally wet season, issuing from the foot of some well-soaked hill or ridge—but strong volumes of water that vary not in any season, totally unaffected by drought; in fact, running stronger during dry weather. ”

“ What can exceed the dazzling splendour of a rising sun, on the trees and bushes, after a night of rain and freezing, when every branch appears like a shining crystal? A prospect grand indeed!
The severe frosts of Winter, with the agitated atmosphere, dispel the sickening fumes which arise from heated and stagnant pools, and decaying vegetation.
This gives health and vigour to the body, and an it were, new spring to thought. Who but has observed the lively sensations of body and mind on a clear frosty morning in winter? ”

“ There are sixty-seven days with rain in the course of the year; but it usually falls in heavy showers which soon leave the sky clear again, though the whole annual amount exceeds 32 in. Fine days and rainy days are almost equally distributed throughout the different seasons. The winds are very variable, sometimes changing several times a day. ”