Chile Is Chilly: Snow In Santiago A Contrast To Our Humidity

A street in Santiago, Chile after a rare snowstorm
hit the city last Saturday.

If you're no fan of the typical summer warmth and humidity we're getting this week in Vermont, I've got a small piece of good news.

Plus some news out of Chile that will hit you like your favorite summer creemee.

First locally: It appears we could get the strongest cold front in weeks toward the end of the week. It could really be on the cool side this weekend.

It's still unclear how strong this push of cool air might be, but it will probably be refreshing. Even, if expected, it won't last long. Although I still don't see any big heat waves on the horizon, either.

If this new isn't good enough for you, take a mental trip to Santiago, Chile.

It's winter down there, and over the weekend, the biggest snowstorm in at least a decade hit that city.

Granted, it wasn't a huge snowstorm - just on the order of one to three inches - but there' not that used to snow in Santiago. (Normal high temperatures in a Santiago mid-winter, i.e. now, are in the upper 50s with lows in the upper 30s. Kind of like a Vermont April.)

Although Santiagoans loved the rare chance to have snowball fights, it wasn't all fun and games.

The wet snow broke many branches and power lines, leaving more than 330,000 residents temporarily without electricity. One person died after he was injured while clearing ice, and two people were injured by fallen power lines.

Here's video of Saturday's scenes in Santiago.

 

El Nino: Let The Ocean Waves REALLY Crash On The Coasts

A huge wave about to send the vehicle in the
circle flying last week in coastal Chile. 

We're having the near record strong El Nino, the periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, which mucks up worldwide weather patterns.

Of course, the places most affected by all this are those near the epicenter of El Nino, namely the west coasts of North and South America.

We saw this recently, as erosion from Pacific storms, some driven by El Nino, threatened to dump California buildings into the Pacific Ocean.

It's just as bad in Chile, where El Nino driven storms are causing havoc.

Here's a video of a recent storm smashing the Chilean coast. Luckily, the occupants in the emergency vehicle you'll see in the video being tossed by the waves are OK.

Bystanders braved the waves to help the people inside the vehicle get out. Still, very scary.

Watch the video:

El Nino Makes Barren Chilean Desert Bloom Gorgeously

The Atacama Desert in Chili is normally one of the most desolate places on Earth.

It's on the east side of the Andes mountains, and is pretty much blocked from any moisture that wants to sneak in from the Pacific Ocean.

Moisture from places like the Amazon, and the Atlantic Ocean way, way, way off to the east are also blocke by moisture.

So the Atacama desert is barren. It's one of the driest places on Earth. In many places in this desert, you can go years without measureable rain. There are actually little sections of this desert where it hasn't rained in 400 years! 

However, during a very strong El Nino, the kind we are having now, the ocean on the Chilean coastt warms, which encourages particularly strong storms to form near that Chilean coast.

The strong storms then allow some moisture to force its way over the mountains into the Atacama desert, and it will rain a little in parts of what looks like a wasteland.

Then a miracle happens. According to the Bored Panda web site this is what happens in those rare occasions when it rains:

"The flowers 'hibernating' beneath its surface suddenly bloom with an explosion of color, eager to take advantage of the rain.'

The Atacama desert then turns into a flowery psychelic paradise, as the photos in this post from Bored Panda indicate. (Click on the pics to make them bigger and easier to enjoy.)

Daniel Diaz, the National Tourism Service director in Atacama said in 2015, this bloom has happened twice in the same year, whih has never been seen in recorded history.

I'll just enjoy the photos of the flowers, and for once in my life, I'll wish I was in the Atacama desert.

Meanwhile, In Chile, A Terrible Wildfire Kills At Least Four

We in the Northeast United States should count our blessings that we've been dealing with flooding, snow and cold.

Valparaiso, Chile burns, as you can see
in this Reuters photo. 

The Chilean coastal city of Valparaiso is mourning the dead and tallying the damage after a massive wildfire swept the city in recent days.

The fire killed 15 people and destroyed about 3,000 homes. 

Dry conditions and strong winds blowing off the hills toward the Pacific Ocean prevented firefighters from gaining control of the blaze.

A lot of destroyed homes were on steep hills with very narrow streets, making firefighting and evacuations all the more difficult.

Thick smoke has caused many people to suffer smoke inhalation, says the BBC.

So we've got another big weather related disaster in a string of calamities that have hit different parts of the globe so far this year.

Here's some videos of the disaster: