Update, 14.1.09: It's official - yesterday's wind was a hurricane.
No, I’m not planning a trip to the Antipodes; rather, when I woke up this morning, I thought I was Dorothy on the yellow-brick road as everything outside was bathed in a strange, yellow light that I had never seen before. [ It was actually yellower than the impression given by the photo, which was the only one I dared take as I was in imminent danger of being blown off the balcony at the time!] I rubbed my eyes, closed and reopened the bedroom window, looked again and there it still was – a yellow world.
I’ve seen many disturbing sky colours in Sicily and usually , when this happens, the girls at Raffaele the hairdresser’s helpfully tell me that we are about to have an earthquake. But I’d never seen anything like this, so I immediately decided to ring Linda, the most sensible person I know. “Don’t worry”, she counselled, before I’d even told her why I was calling: “It’s just the Scirocco or Ghibli wind picking up sand on the way. The Sicilians call it terra rossa." She went on to say that she and her family had had a dramatic night as one of their pine trees had fallen on a neighbour’s car. [No one was injured, thank goodness.] At 1 am the fire brigade had arrived to cut the rest of the tree down, which saddened everyone, and they told Linda that they had been felling trees all over Modica for the three previous hours.
Sicily has, in fact, had two days and nights of torrential rain and high winds and there has been a lot of damage all over the island, with streams overflowing, roads and level crossings becoming impassable because of fallen branches or roadsigns upon them and some roads having been turned into a mass of mud. Agricultural land near Nicosia is at risk of flooding and the exterior of the Casualty department at Agrigento’s hospital has been damaged.
According to the forecast, the winds will be with us until tomorrow afternoon, though they did die down a little after siesta today, so I managed to get to Raffaele’s and back in one piece and no one, by then, was talking of earthquakes!
20 comments:
Impressive. Seems we see the result of the sandstorm (mainly in Libya) which was reported here yesterday evening.
We have had the winds here too! But now yellow skies. I think I would worry if we got one of those...
The sky over here in Catania was a very similar color. I was amazed to see red rain falling on my car and the waves splashing over the rocks onto the highway, the vigile del fuoco came to rescue here near Acicastello to prevent a road sign from tumbling dangerously over onto the road due to strong winds and waves. Let's hope for calmer days soon.
Hi, Sean. I hadn't seen that report. I'll look for it now. Hi, Cherie. It was very worrying when I first saw it! Hello and welcome, Lost in Sicily. That red rain must have been very frightening. It's calmer here now. How about over there?
Would you care to borrow an umbrella at all? I have two - so there is one to spare.
YEllow skies...
That would scare me. What causes that, electricity or something?
How very chivalrous, Mutley. I would, indeed. Hi, Crushed. Sand!
I shall pop over with it directly and a bottle of that Sandemanns Port you are so fond of...
How exciting Welshcakes! Though I hope you aren't affected too much!
Similar things have happened back in blighty - as a kid I remember the met reporting that we would have Saraha sand in our hair, tea, cucumber sandwiches, etc. Not quite, but something like that. Bit like eating sandwiches on a sandy beach - some always seems to get stuck to hard boiled eggs. I couldn't scrap off the shell with my sandy fingers without getting some sand on the egg's surface, which I gainfully ate between slurps of Tizer pop. "Them were the days my friends, I thought they would never end, them were the days, oh them were the days" or some such words. Sorry, I have a memory of an elephant for lyrics/movie lines, but can't remember the song/writer/singer.
When I read the title of the post, I got very excited.
For a moment I thought it was an abbreviation meaning, 'Welshcakes in Australia.'
I think it was about 3 winters ago during the period of Carnevale when I witnessed this "orange sky". Even weirder was the orange "snow" on the ground. Oddly enough, some sicilian friends explained to us about the Scirocco winds, and that sand had blown in and mixed in with the falling snow, giving it a pastel orange blush. It was surreal!
You're on, Mutley! Hello, Dr CW. You've brought it all back to me! Tizer - I remember it well. It was Mary Hopkin who sang the song but I don't know who composed it.
Ciao, Ardent. Sorry about that! Hi, Miss B. It's calmer today.
A hurricane? Gosh! Glad you made it to Raffaele's safely. Most important that your hair is done! (Yesterday I went to Zac's with freshly-washed hair, make-up on and feeling good, and Sean said, 'You look very tired, Liz.' So I had a lie-in today!)
Caltagirone looks rather gaudyesque. (Nice word I made up there!) Glad you're out and about more. Rosa is a star.
My God Welshcakes.. I would be pretty astonished to see yellow skies. Did you say to Simi that it isn't Kansas?
Hi, Rowena. That must have been an amazing sight, too. Hi, Liz. Yes, you have to have a hairdo in a hurricane! Hi, jams. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. I didn't think of Kansas!
That's pretty amazing weather. I guess you didn't lose power or Internet access?
Our intrepid Sicilian reporter! Don't fall off the balcony whatever you do.
That does not sound like very nice weather at all, but at least you don't have to shovel it.
Hi, Betty. Yes, the power bwent off several times for short periods.
Hi, jmb. Sorry about the late reply. "You don't have to shovel it" - there is that, and I'll remember it next time!
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