La Tormenta de Santa Rosa

The weather in Argentina is a bit crazy. Right now, for example, it's winter, headed toward spring, and yet all weekend it was simply gorgeous, perfect summery weather. Blue skies, sun, and hot hot hot-- in fact, I spent all afternoon yesterday in the park in a sun dress trying to take my extreme whiteness to a healthy shade of pink. (I failed-- still white.)

The summer-in-winter weather has been a popular topic of discussion in my classes, and so this week several of my students have told me the story of La Tormenta de Santa Rosa -aka- the Santa Rosa Storm. This is a storm that every year inevitably hits the week of August 30th, either a few days before or after.

Apparently, every year around this time, it oddly gets very hot and nice, like a flash forward to summer. Then suddenly, within a couple days of August 30th, Santa Rosa blows through the city, usually with heavy rains and strong winds, and takes the warm weather away when it goes.

Anyway, it was impossible for me to believe yesterday, looking up at the perfect blue, cloudless sky that there could be a storm today, but the weathermen insisted. And lo and behold, today, right on schedule, I woke up to a grey sky, torrential rain and heavy winds. SANTA ROSA!

In all honestly, it wasn't bad. Granted, it's still mid-day and maybe it will get bad again, but it seems to be clearing up a bit, albeit a very ugly, grey day. But once again the legend was right... Santa Rosa really does strike, without fail, right at this time. This naysayer has been humbled.

Here's one article about today's mini-Santa Rosa Storm. And here's some more information on Santa Rosa, which talks a bit about its history.