Palms in the rain

[bgl]

At first I meant to post these in Weather / Climate, but then I figured, I have enough palms in these photos to qualify for the main forum..!

Anyway, there's been a Flash Flood Warning issued for the entire state of Hawaii since (I believe) early this morning. However, we didn't have a drop of rain all morning, even though the sky was heavy with moisture, and you knew it was not a question of 'if' but only of 'when' it was going to begin. Well, at 1:15 p.m. the sky turned even darker, the sky opened up the way it really only does in the tropics and the rain came down as furiously as it possibly could. When this happens, it's like machinegun fire from a thousand guns on our metalroof and normal conversation is out of the question. If the TV is on, volume has to be turned up to its absolute maximum in order to hear anything. I had no intention of venturing outside, but took a few photos from our front lanai.

Here's one shot straight down our driveway. Neoveitchia storckii to the immediate left and right, and most of the taller palms are Clinostigmas. There's a Pigafetta trunk close to the left side of the photo. The cycad is a Cycas pectinata.

[bgl]

And this is to my left. A Corypha umbraculifera, with a few Clinostigma samoense trunks in the background and a Dypsis lastelliana to the left. Note the little river that's instantly forming on the asphalt!

And keep in mind - this is at 1:20 in the afternoon, even though the sky is really dark.

[DoomsDave]

BO!

[EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVELY] STOP IT!

You're torturing us here in Cali, brother!

OOPS!

Gotta go and move the sprinkler . . . . .

Sigh!

Seriously,  grand pics, all of yours are.

I might be your neighbor sooner than you feared . . . . . .

[freakypalmguy]

Nice shot Bo.

It's so rare to get rain like that here in Temecula that I actually enjoy it.

[bgl]

And to my right, looking down towards "Licuala Lane" with a number of Licuala ramsayi fronds just barely visible. The gutters (which feed our water catchment tank) couldn't cope with the huge amount of water coming off the roof, and as can be seen, it's overspilling big time. All the tall trunks are Clinostigmas.

[ariscott]

I absolutely love rain. It has not rain for a week or so here. It is definitely hot... so rain is due very soon. There is nothing better than looking at the garden in the rain.

Regards, Ari

[bgl]

And, finally, back inside at my desk, my dogs - obviously having more common sense than me - decide to do the intelligent thing and hide under my desk. Wilbur (L) and Orville ®. About 2 minutes after I took this photo there was a monstrous thud of thunder right over our house, so that point even I understood the seriousness of the situation, turned off the computers, and headed out into the living room where I sat down with the dogs. Well, actually, after 45 minutes, it was merely pouring down, so I decided to go out and check the rain gauge. 3 inches in 45 minutes. In other words, an inch of rain every 15 minutes. By the time I got back in the house (3-4 minutes later), it took me a few minutes to locate the dogs. Wilbur was hiding in the pantry and Orville was hiding behind a small table. Took another hour with them before thunder and lightning (and most of the rain) had gone away.

[RadPalms]

I remember those days Bo when it would rain so hard that it would bounce back off the ground and look like it was raining from the ground.  The wind would be blowing so hard that the ohea trees would be bending over and hitting the ground.  Driving in it isn't fun either.  Be safe and stay inside and catch up on some reading....

Curt

[epicure3]

I'd be standing right out in it staring up and getting the rain in my mouth, just like a dumb turkey.

Do you get a lot of thunderstorms in Hawaii?

[SubTropicRay]

Bo, will you mail me some rain?  It's desperately needed here.  I'll pay the postage.

[bgl]

John,

Thunderstorms are very rare in Hawaii. In the 12 years I've been here, I'd say we've had on average one per year.

And Ray,

you figure out a way to package the stuff, and I'll make that my side business!

Bo-Göran

Edit: BTW, figured out some time ago, that when we have an inch of rain (25.5mm) that's equal to approx. 125,000 gallons of water over our 5 acres. So 3 inches (76 mm) meant we had roughly 375,000 gallons of water in a span of 45 minutes. Or 1.4 million litres of you prefer metric!

[Tassie_Troy1971]

Mate your driveway looks spectacular ! rain or shine !

[ruskinPalms]

We didn't see enough of that this year in west central FL. One thunderstorm a year sounds a little boring. I was planning to move to HI for the longest time while my wife and I were in college. I think I could trade the lack of "excitement" for the perfect palm growing climate. HI may still be in our future as I think we need somthing different (culturally if not meteorlogically) in our lives.

[bgl]

Bill,

Trust me, the weather here is anything but boring! The only thing that's predictable is its unpredictability. Several years ago (and this is when I stopped paying attention to the so called weather forecasts on the news), the local evening news made a very unusual statement "there's zero chance of rain anywhere in the state". I've never ever heard them say that again. And maybe the reason was the fact that we had 5 inches of rain that night!

Bo-Göran

[Urban Rainforest]

Bo, That is awesome news! I'm glad it's raining at one of my properties because it sure is'nt raining here in San Diego. With the drought we have been having you just got like our annual rainfall in 45 min.   !! I'm sure all your bigger well rooted palms are loving it but do you think that much rain coming down that hard would wash the dirt away from my newly planted palms or do you think they will be fine? My driveway must look like a lake as it has that muddy lowspot in the middle. I LOVE the rain and I'm so glad to here that it's raining plentifuly there. BTW, Is that the most it has rained in that short a timespan since you have lived there? Thanks for the updates and be safe over there!

Steve

[bgl]

Steve,

I havn't ventured over to look at your property, but based on what it looked like the other day when we had 2.5 inches overnight I can say with certainty that the first part of your driveway must be a real mess! I'll check on your palms tomorrow, but I'm fairly certain they're all fine. And an inch every 15 minutes is about as "bad" as it gets, and that doesn't happen very often. Just a couple of times in a year. More common is the type of very steady and relatively heavy rain with about an inch an hour. We've had numerous nights since we moved here when we had 6-10 inches overnight, but when that happens it's a very steady, nonstop, type of rain. Not the kind of off-and-on, extremely heavy on occasions, that was the case today. After I posted the photos above it stopped raining for several hours, but it started again around 6 p.m. or so. Right now it's 7:15 p.m. An educated guess would be that right now we may be getting an inch in 2-3 hours or so, so not nearly as heavy as earlier. I'll post an update tomorrow morning.

Bo-Göran

[Kris]

My favouriate stills were one with tlipot palms & the other with your lovely pets..

thanks & love,

Kris  

[Walter John]

(ariscott @ Nov. 04 2007,20:44)

QUOTE

I absolutely love rain. It has not rain for a week or so here. It is definitely hot... so rain is due very soon. There is nothing better than looking at the garden in the rain.

Regards, Ari

Right on Ari, I like going out in the garden in the rain some times, walk amongst the palms, you can feel their joy, I think that's after a few stubbies though.

[ariscott]

I don't need beer for that, Wal, although it certainly helps     .

Regards, Ari

[Miccles]

And not to mention: after the rain stops....  the smell of the air as you wander around the garden...superb.  

[MattyB]

We got about and inch of rain over here on the Kona side at Deans this afternoon.  What a refreshing change from our drought in SoCal.  The thought of the ground really being soaked through and through is so foriegn for me right now.  I've been surrounded by such dryness this year that it's really cool to experience.

[redant]

I'm always hesitant to open one of Bo's threads, I have to prepare myself for a bad case of palm envy.  

[bgl]

Just a quick update - had roughly 3 more inches overnight, so in the 24 hour period that ended this morning, we had a total of 5.88 inches.

And Steve, your place looks just fine. There was no standing water in the driveway at 8 a.m. today (even though I'm sure it must have been pretty mushy!!), and the palms I could see from the street (thru the fence) and from across our fence looked just fine. I've actually never experienced a problem with a palm due to heavy rain. Even the tiny ones take the rain just fine, and if you plant them right (=compacting the soil), there's not going to be any erosion.

[Palmhut1]

Hey Matt bring some back with you. Rain that is not palm seeds......LOL

[Urban Rainforest]

(bgl @ Nov. 06 2007,00:15)

QUOTE

Just a quick update - had roughly 3 more inches overnight, so in the 24 hour period that ended this morning, we had a total of 5.88 inches.

And Steve, your place looks just fine. There was no standing water in the driveway at 8 a.m. today (even though I'm sure it must have been pretty mushy!!), and the palms I could see from the street (thru the fence) and from across our fence looked just fine. I've actually never experienced a problem with a palm due to heavy rain. Even the tiny ones take the rain just fine, and if you plant them right (=compacting the soil), there's not going to be any erosion.

Bo, That is a tremendous amount of rain for a 24 hr. period! If we had that much rain here in So Cal. in 24 hrs. it would no doubt do serious damage. With the volcanic substrata over there it is the perfect sponge. I'm glad to here my palms are fine and I did some serious compaction when I planted them so there should'nt be erosion. It just amazes me the consistency of the rainfall over there! Thanks again for checking on things!

Steve

[bgl]

After two days of very little rain, we finally had some nice concistent rain earlier this morning. Nothing major - it didn't even add up to an inch - but this is a place where people start talking about a drought when we go for more than 3 days without rain! Since it wasn't very heavy I decided to venture outside for a few pictures. Here's a Licuala grandis frond.

[bgl]

Group of Licuala ramsayi on Licuala Lane (see sign on rockwall!)

[bgl]

Ptychosperma elegans babies doing their best to elbow out their siblings so they can grow up!

[bgl]

Areca guppyana fruit

[bgl]

Dypsis sp. bejofa both left and right with (smaller) Dypsis decipiens in the background (center).

[bgl]

Iguanura wallichiana

[bgl]

And finally, Kerriodoxa elegans

[paulgila]

great pix,bo.i can hear the sound of the rain hitting those beautiful,big leaves

[ariscott]

Do you usually get wind with the rain, Bo? Everything seems wet but not blown around so much.

Regards, Ari

[bgl]

VERY little wind here. Usually just a very light breeze. A handful of times per year the wind will pick up in intensity but those are very unusual events. Had 3 days in late January with very strong winds, and three good sized ohi'a tees fell down as a result of that. That was the most wind we've had in 12 years here, and even so, probably not much compared to storms and hurricanes elsewhere.

[ariscott]

Very lucky, Bo... Our palms and trees have to deal with a lot of wind, as our storms come with quite strong wind. Cyclone is another thing all together... we are lucky that Darwin has been spared for a few years now... Not sure about this year though.

Regards, Ari

[ruskinPalms]

Beautiful shots as always Bo  Speaking of wind, we had awicked north wind the other day that made go out and top some of my hibiscus bushes that had crept up to about 10 to 12 feet tall. I knocked them down to about 8 feet tall and they were able to take the wind better. They were blowing over so much that they were threatening to damage my Archontophoenix cunninghamiana. Not cool

[Moose]

Lots of rain - little wind = very happy palms in Hawaii