Rain or Not

Rain or Not was Originally Posted on January 29, 2013 by lavarock

Some of the other islands have had flooding but we have had little rain in my town. That is not to mean that our island did not get wet as it is hard to tell. We have micro-climates where you can drive a couple miles and the weather patterns are very different.

To make the point, I went into Google Earth and saved 2 images taken on different sides of the same street about 5 or 10 miles apart. The first shows the East side of the Volcano National Park looking towards Mauna Loa. You see ferns growing and lots and lots of green vegetation. The second photo looks toward the ocean across a few of the volcanic craters. There is scrub brush and dry trees. This is heading towards one of the desert regions of the island.

Then a bit past the rainforest you can see why people started living out here.

I could do a travelog around the island, but you get the idea. In just 4,000 sq miles (10,430 km) we have 11 of the 13 world climate zones (lacking the two extremes). We have a rainforest, a desert, plains and so on. We do not have arctic (yet we do get some snow) and we don’t have tropical (we are sub-tropic).

UPDATE: Overnight this message was posted about travel up to the observatories on Mauna Kea, our 14,000 foot peak here.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 – 05:09 a.m.

The Mauna Kea summit road is closed to the public above the Visitor Information Station. Ice on road surfaces have made driving unsafe. This announcement will updated as conditions change.

I liken a trip around out island as a trip at least around the U.S. or perhaps Australia (except we have taller mountains :-). A round trip here could be done in 8 hours, perhaps less. We also have a shortcut across one part of the island, but it is way up north.

On our cable TV system we have a visitors channel. Some parts of the video presentation is on this website: http://bigislandtv.com/broadband/BigIslandvs.html.

The Kona Coast video shows coffee processing the old way. The South Kona video starts out showing the Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay, which is a couple miles from my house. As you look at the monument, my farm is behind you and up the hill. I used to be able to see the monument from my house, however there are some trees in the way now that are not on my property.

The “Place of Refuge” is a few miles from me the other direction (towards the south). There is a park past that where I exercise the dogs.

The island is a quiet place, pretty low crime rate, nice weather and good neighbors. Many things grow here that have problems elsewhere.

Now if we had just a bit more rain.