Summer Rain

I remember sitting in my office in Jerusalem mid summer when a colleague raced through the corridors screaming “It’s Raining! In the Summer!”

This phenomenon is so rare in Israel that its occurrence always causes a stir.

The weather is so consistent that in my first few years in the country a forecast was only given every 3 days, and it was virtually always the same. “The weather is forecast to be HOT”.

Not so in Melbourne. The temperature moves in a cycle, building from fresh cool sunny days to those that are warmer and more humid. The sunny days are followed by weather that is hot, cloudy and humid with thunderstorms that clean the air and break the cycle.

In the meantime, the skies vary from clear bright blues to being pregnant with dark and menacing clouds. Sunsets are the best.

This week, at dusk, our house was suddenly bathed in a bright warm light, as if lit up for a concert. My mother and I went outside to investigate and the burning orange sunset transformed everything to brown and purple. It took a few minutes until I managed to grab my camera, but as you can see, an ethereal purple glow still washed the rainy streets when I got there.

Wonderful.