Mountains and Weather

So often when I go for a walk, I stop and marvel at the land surrounding me. It is harsh, steep, rocky, grand, majestic, naked, depleted, elemental, and beautiful. In the spring the slopes bloom a dusky green as every grass and bush type thing makes a dash at reproduction before the powerful summer sun burns all but the hardiest to a dull or bright gold.
With that summer sun come the storms. As in many mountain ranges, the mountains here provide a daily weather cycle. The sun pours energy into the air, the ground, the plants, and water evaporates, heat rises, air moves. It rises, channeled by the slopes of the ground until it reaches the cold heights where it condenses and “poof!” cumulus clouds are born. Over the course of the day, these little clouds grow into thunderheads. If rain clouds were already there that morning, then these thunderstorms grow big. These storms move across the mountains quickly, and the mountains rake the fingers of their high peaks through the clouds, forcing them up, forcing out rain, snow, and hail as they reclaim the water the sun drew out of them that morning. The rain settles into the ground, setting the stage for the following day when the sun rises into a once more clear sky.
This is so regular and predictable that (as are the usually accompanying power outages) that no one does their laundry in the afternoon. Not even me anymore. J You just have to bring it in half-dried if you do. We all keep candles handy, too.
Today was no different; we got a pretty good storm. Gusty winds, boiling clouds, yellow light, hail, curtains of rain. I had taken a nap, and awoke to a prematurely darkened sky and the constant rumble of thunder from the west. Ominous gusts of wind threw dust, sand, and dirt into the air. I walked to the side of my porch to assess what was coming. Pale grey, but turbulent clouds were mounting up behind Sarat (the peak west of us) and tumbling over. Lightning sparkled across the sky nearly continuously, and the thunder echoed metallically off the mountains. I took my clothes in and parked myself on my porch to watch the storm come. The wind picked up and I watched as curtains of rain dove down between the mountains and me across the way, driven by the wind. It reminded me of large flocks of ducks diving out of the sky to a lake to land in. That lake was soon to be my porch, and I retreated to a window view to watch women and children fight the rain and wind as they hurried to shelter. With no more preambles, it came down hard, and then a sharper tapping sound from my roof announced the change of rain to hail. I remembered the cement downstairs and ran to try to cover it more effectively. The rain was knocking gravel and rocks out of my neighbor’s wall all over my steps, and water was pouring out of the pipe from my roof onto my porch, where an impatient lake of brown water waited to swirl out of the downspout off my porch. Hail smacked my head, as I ran up and down the stairs, trying to manage the water and the cement. A peek inside my house revealed that only the normal problem spots were leaking, and not too badly at that either. L-hamdullah! In a few short minutes the storm had passed, leaving trails of bright brown water wending their way down the mountains.

Sometimes when I’m out walking, I imagine the mountain peaks are reaching up to slap hands—High five! —with the clouds as they drift over. As if they say, “Way to go on that last gullywasher, man! Did you see those little human-people scurry??! Righteous, dude.”