A Dry Winter or A Cold Summer

Santiago, Chile, Tuesday 14 June 2011

One of the most fantastic things about the Mediterranean zone of Chile (mediterranean means "surrounded by a landmass; inland") is that we always have sunlight. In the winter here, the sun is usually out during the day and the temperature is rarely cold except at night, when it tends to plummet. Still, Canadians and Europeans used to really cold weather don't find the winters cold in Chile, except of course that we don't have central heating in most houses and people stint on heating anyway, to economize.

Also, most houses (and buildings) are made of earthquake-resistant concrete and so they get very cold and often aren't insulated either. There are still adobe constructions and they say adobe is warm in winter and cold in summer, but the old adobe houses from the Victorian era are horrendously cold, with their 15-foot ceilings and dark rooms. Yes, more comfortable in the summer, but in the winter rather gloomy and expensive to heat.

We had a dry autumn and the winter starts on the 21st of June but so far it has only really rained _once_. And for just a day and a half.

No rain in the winter means bad air. The government has never done anything really about the smog, except bring in cars with catalytic converters and get the smoke belching buses off the streets. So it relies on rain to clear the air. Now that we haven't had rain, there's been pretty bad air quality. Besides the fact that there are ever more cars on the streets, and santiaguinos don't take kindly to vehicle restriction being applied to catalytic converter cars as well, in addition to leaded gasoline fueled cars.

Let's hope it rains. The El Niño current was supposed to leave us, and that was allegedly going to allow the rain to come.

Later alligator.