Weekly Photo Challenge: Chaos Reigned / Chaos Rained

A contribution to this week’s photo challenge on the theme  of Chaos. Taken just over a year ago on the morning the heavy rains arrived just as people were heading of to work. The ensuing torrents of water turned roads into rivers and chaos reigned (and rained!).

So far we have not had a repeat – the rains though probably now started have been overnight, but they are getting heavier – it’s only a matter of time before chaos reigns again.

After The Rain

The rains are officially here – there is no doubt. This morning we had the most torrential downpour in Mwanza – beginning about 6am it continued unabated for many hours finally easing off at about 11am. In that time the drains quickly became blocked and the roads became rivers – it made for an interesting journey to work this morning as we bypassed abandoned vehicles and ploughed through rivers on our usual route.

At school the rain had caused a small landslide which had brought down a wall in the corner of the playing field – there was a lot of rain coming down.

Photos courtesy of a colleague.

Thankfully the afternoon brightened up to a sunny end to the day – returning home was a lot easier. The garden was alive with birdlife enjoying the evening rays.

Purple Grenadier

Spotted Morning Thrush

Northern Grey Headed Sparrow

Spotted Morning Thrush

Pied Kingfishers

Red-billed Firefinch

Yellow-billed Black Kite in the sun

Northern Grey Headed Sparrow

Pied Kingfishers

Female Red-billed Firefinch

Common Bulbul

Red-billed Firefinch

Laughing Dove

Eastern Grey Plantain Eater

Speckled Mousebird

Red-billed Firefinch

As is often the case here -even the wettest days has a lot of sunshine too!

Mwanza is Rubbish!

….or more accurately there’s a lot of rubbish (garbage) in Mwanza.

Aftermath

This morning we had a lot of rain. We were woken by an enormous thunder clap and the rain fell in torrents for an hour or so.

The resultant rains left an aftermath on the roads and paths. The roads and paths here are mainly mud and sand so they turn into rivers washing away the surface and forming ridges.

For reference here is a walk to school in time before the rains.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Winter That Wasn’t

T Minus 99

It’s probably safe to say that we’re not going to get any snow!

Today has been a lovely day. I grabbed some photos of the Wisteria and Ceonothus close up this morning before work. I will miss this annual combo.

The forecast for the week ahead courtesy of Accuweather is predicting warmer temperatures over the next week – so Spring is firmly entrenched.

We never really had a winter. Not a single snowflake fell in this part of the world – let alone settled on the ground. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I love the first snow of winter – even though it becomes tiresome after a few days as it turns to slush and / or black ice. It’s quite nice to have the odd Snow Day too ;-).

This year winter was having none of it. True we had some frosts but I can count on one hand the number of days I had to scrape the ice off the car. In the end we had months and months of rain with some high winds on occasions.

Given this will have been our last UK winter for a few years it was a little disappointing. Other than the top of Kilimanjaro, I imagine I won’t see snow for a few years :-(. So the last Snow as in April 2013.

Having said that – now I’ll probably wake up to 6 inches of the white stuff in June – stranger things have happened. 😀

The photos below were taken between 2010 and 2013.