Panama Travelog #26
Soberania National Park, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 2pm.

This is another blog I've unstuck from my Panama trip backlog.

Today we're driving from El Valle de Antón to Panama City with a a few stops for short hikes. Around noon today we visited El Chorro del la Chorrera. Now we're doing a bit of revenge hiking.

It's revenge ( Read more... )

Panama Travelog #17
El Valle, Panama - Tue, 24 Dec 2024. 5pm.

In my last blog about climbing La Dormida (sleeping Indian girl) I shared how I kept telling myself, "We're almost there, keep going," to persevere through the worsening rain. Well, the trail was steep all the way to the top.


( Read more... )

Panama Travelog #16
El Valle, Panama - Tue, 24 Dec 2024. 3pm.

There's good news and bad news on the trail to La Dormida. The bad news is we finished climbing through the stream canyon filled with waterfalls. That should mean the good news is we're almost at the top. But, bad news: the trail got even steeper making it up to the ridge. At least we ( Read more... )

It's amusing. After I blogged this morning about how I'm not sick of Northern California's rainy season yet I checked my weather app again for Panama- we leave tonight- and saw this:


( Read more... )

Today, December 21st, is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. It's the shortest day, the longest night, and the start of winter by modern convention ( Read more... )

Overnight through this morning the SF Bay Area got another atmospheric river rain storm. The colorful and slightly ominous term describes a rain system that comes across the Pacific Ocean- which, since we're basically on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, is pretty damn much every single rain storm we get. Indeed last year we got at least seventeen ( Read more... )

After Wednesday's bomb cyclone failed to deliver locally the violent weather its name suggests (though it did pack a wallop in Oregon and Washington) today a steady, soaking rain has set in. A look at the forecast shows that it's likely to rain here for the next four days. We could get several inches of rain over that time. The Sierra Nevada ( Read more... )

Today an atmospheric river hit the SF Bay Area up through the Pacific Northwest to Seattle. But it wasn't just a normal atmospheric river, it was a bomb cyclone. While these arguably over-dramatically named phenomena brought high winds north of us on up to Seattle, they were close to a nonevent here in Silicon Valley. We got 0.1" (one-tenth of an ( Read more... )

I've quipped before that I judge the start of Fall not by the astronomical phenomenon of the equinox on Sept 21 but by 3 observational milestones. One of them, the point at which it's cool enough to turn on the heat, came 11 days ago. Today the other two of the trifecta arrived: it was cool enough around home that I elected to wear trousers, and it ( Read more... )

I've remarked before that one of the milestones I use to gauge when the seasons are changing is when I turn the heat on. Turning the heat on in the house is one indication Fall has arrived This is different from the traditional, solar calendar based season, which started on the equinox almost four weeks ago. It turned out to be warm that day, then ( Read more... )