Freakish Weather

North of the border it seems that every day there is news of more tornados leaving a path of death and destruction in the central portion of the U.S.  Here in Mexico, much of the country continues to be in the grip of a heat wave.  In the tropical forests of the state of Tabasco howler monkeys are dropping dead from the trees.

It does seem that the rainy season has finally begun and will hopefully relieve the drought here.  On Wednesday evening, in the neighborhood of my apartment, there was a nice, steady rain which lasted for at least two hours.  In some parts of the metropolitan area, however, the rain was accompanied with hail and high winds which downed trees.  On Friday there was no rain at the apartment, but Alejandro's family's neighborhood had rain.  Then early yesterday evening, while Alejandro and I were in a restaurant having supper, there was a downpour.  It conveniently eased to a light sprinkle when we were ready to return to the apartment.  As I expected, when I took a look at the webcam photos this morning, the precipitation had left the volcano "Popo" covered in a mantle of snow.

Last Friday the city of Puebla, just two hours away on the other side of the volcanoes, was hit with a freak hailstorm.  Some parts of the city were covered by as much as a couple feet of hail.  There were downed trees, vehicles buried in ice, and flooding when the hail melted.  These pictures that I found on the internet look more like winter scenes from the north than of a country in the midst of a heatwave.