Tue 07.Feb.2012
Rhodes, Greece
A gale force wind has been howling most of the day, and gusting fiercely.
A weather web site claims we had gusts of 65 kph; I would have guessed more
than that. This is going to do damage, if only to the greenhouse crops further
south on the island.
In three winters here I've seen nothing like it.
No rain, but down by the harbor it was all I could manage to stay upright.
I had to lean on a lamp pole and wrap my arm around it to take a photo without
being blown over. The normally mild Aegean was up in pounding surf. No ferries
could have sailed.
That is surf over the breakwater, not fog.
An earlier view on a more normal day.
In a modern neighborhood east of the old city, a tree fell into the
front of a supermarket breaking the glass. (What we call a supermarket;
in Greece it tends to be called a hypermarket.)
High above the moat is a tower of the Grandmasters' Palace where crows hang out
in large numbers. Today, the crows were handling the fierce, gusting wind pretty durned
well. But even they travelled backwards sometimes when they were flying upwind.
Getting blown intensely - so to speak - was good for "Gee whiz",
but not for picture-taking.
The rest of this page is from earlier, gentler days.
"O, crack great cheeks, and break wind, break!"
- Firesign Theatre
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf