Update from the Congo

The trip from Kigali to the border was very smooth, on a well-maintained road with spectacular views (that is, when we weren't in the middle of thick fog). The hillsides are checkerboards of terraces in many shades of green, and laterite-stained waterfalls jump out over rocky cliffs when you least expect it. Just before getting to the border we got a view of a pair of volcanoes (active, naturally) with their tops obscured by clouds.

We had been warned to expect having to cough up some bribes at the border, but the officials just smiled, stamped our passports, and waved us through. Goma itself is a pretty singular place. It's on the north shore of Lake Kivu, one of the Great Lakes of Africa. The city has a beautiful setting, with lush green hills marching up to the shoreline and fishing boats out in the deeper waters.

To the northeast are more active volcanoes, including Mt Nyiragongo (described as one of the most active in the world, and home to one of the world's few lava lakes). Lava from an eruption in 2002 flowed through -- and devastated -- central Goma, and now the city is strewn with piles of volcanic rock and gravel that are being used for (re)building materials. Its neighbor Mt Nyamulagira started erupting again a few days ago (news story here), but fortunately for us the lava is flowing away from Goma. However, the heat from the crater seems to be generating a big thunderhead cloud sitting over the mountain.

We've spent three days at the hospital here now and have already gotten a lot accomplished on our research project. We're staying at a guesthouse right on the shore of the lake, surrounded by riots of flowers and guarded by our faithful new canine friend, Poupé. There was a tropical thunderstorm with lightning over the lake tonight: welcome weather geek entertainment for us thunderstorm-deprived Bay Areans.

I was thinking of taking a shower tonight, but the enormous insect in the shower stall at the moment is obviously the dominant critter in our ecosystem, so maybe I'll just wait until tomorrow morning....

Synchronicity

This month I've been working upstairs in the ICU. I was on call Saturday and Sunday and at the end of the shift was signing out to the oncoming on-call resident after 30 blurry, sleep-deprived hours of adjusting ventilator settings and fine-tuning medications. When I was done my colleague said "see you Tuesday." Waitaminit, Tuesday, you say? Not Monday? There are no holiday or weekend schedules in the Emergency Room, but it turns out that today is President's Day (who knew?), and if you're not on call in the ICU you don't have to come in. Amazing! Especially since I'm in the middle of a run of 17 days on duty with no days off -- what a gift!

Then, on my way out, a couple of nurses grabbed me and insisted that I look out the window. Incredibly, it had snowed overnight and there was a dusting of white on the hills above the Marin headlands. A day off, and snow in the Bay Area: two once-in-a-residency events, and at the same time!

I celebrated by going home to sleep.

Edge of the clouds

Between night shifts at the moment, which can be pretty disorienting in lots of ways. I went for a coffee earlier and couldn't quite tell if the sun was out or not. Turned out that the fog cap that generally sits over the western part of the city during the summer was extending to just about a block from here, making the sun fade in and out. Cool, although a bit much for my sleep-deprived brain to process.

Unstormy weather

Today I was going back through some older posts, looking for something that might be expanded into a larger piece. (Any suggestions?) I'd forgotten that I used to have a category called Weather Geek. Gotta say that moving from the extremes of Iowa weather to the Bay Area's temperate climes has kind of eliminated that category for me. Time was when I would blog about tornadoes (even live-blogged a couple), ice storms, heat waves, blizzards. I think the most I've managed from the Bay Area was a short post about rain. Not even a torrential, car-floating downpour; just noting that it was raining, as opposed to not.

Climate change

Quick phone chat today with a friend in Chicago. Me, standing on the balcony in a T-shirt, watching a hummingbird feed from succulent blossoms. Her, standing outside trying to get reception, turning blue. Conversation ended with a thud when the cell phone fell from her stiff, frostbitten hand.

Believe me, I know how good I've got it. My sympathies go out to all my friends in the colder parts of the country.

Rain in San Francisco

We've had several days of on-again, off-again rain in San Francisco -- oddly comforting for many of us with Seattle roots. But watch out on the wet sidewalks on those steep hills!

Winter in California

Recently I had a rare and precious Saturday off, which meant that I could spend the day doing something with Lady M. We headed up the California coast where we climbed through the woods up a small mountain. Near the top we stopped in a clearing where we sat in the sun and ate our beef jerky and trail mix. It was so warm and pleasant that I even took off my trail-sweaty tee shirt.

Now, we've been nostalgic for the people we miss from the Midwest, and I have to admit that Melinda June's adventures settling in to her new city have had me thinking fondly about Chicago. However, reading her latest post reminds me of Lady M pointing out to me, as I sat shirtless in the sun in the woods in late November, that we sure wouldn't be doing that if we were in the Midwest right now.

Eclipsed

Having carefully considered my dilemma, I opted to face the deep freeze and go outside to see the lunar eclipse. I watched until just before it was full, and it was an astronomical spectacle well worth braving the cold for. Sadly, however, I was robbed of any claim of toughness. As I stood there in my sweater and fleece and heavy coat and long underwear and three hats and two pairs of gloves, a guy came out of the building carrying a tripod and wearing only a fleece -- and no hat! "Watching the moon?" he asked. I was too humbled to reply with more than a mutter.

As fate would have it, cloud cover soon blew in, sparing me any further frostbitten embarrassment.

Colder than an obscene metaphor

Oh, man, it's been cold in the Midwest lately. So cold that I find myself pondering something that's ordinarily a no-brainer for me -- do I go outside to gawk at tonight's lunar eclipse? My friends at the National Weather Service tell me that the temps are heading down below zero Fahrenheit with wind chills around -15 F. Brrrr. On the other hand, it's the last one I'll be able to see until 2010.

What to do, what to do?

Watching the skies

I was due to fly out this morning for one last interview tomorrow, but it's snowing, snowing, snowing and two of my flights have already been canceled. Let's see what my good buds at the National Weather Service have to say about local conditions at the airport:

"Hazardous Weather Outlook
Winter Storm Warning
This Afternoon: Periods of snow with areas of blowing snow...Blustery, with a north wind between 17 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph...Total daytime snow accumulation of around 4 inches."

Hmm, that doesn't sound promising. Oh, and my airline's online reservation system has, unsurprisingly, crashed. So far today I've been routed through Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, and St. Louis. I wonder what city I'll be in tonight?

Overheard

Bit of a cold spell today, with temps well below 0 degrees (F) and wind chills around -30F. While I was out running errands earlier a young, scarfless guy passed me as he turned the corner into the wind. The next thing I heard was "Aaagh!!! My face!"

Also overheard today, in conversation among clerks at Office Depot: "He called and said he was baking something. He wanted to know if baking soda and flour are interchangeable."

Glazed

On my walk to the hospital today I had a chance to appreciate the effects of the latest ice storm to blow through these parts. It was pretty magical: everything, and I mean everything, is encased in a quarter inch of clear ice. Each large tree must be covered with hundreds of pounds of ice; each individual needle on the pines is locked in its own crystalline sheath; even the snow is covered with a thick layer of ice. Walking on it, the crust shatters with every step. The trees make a particularly impressive sound in the wind: a sort of crinkling groan, due to the extra weight they're bearing combined with shearing ice. Watch out for those falling branches!

However, the board exam is the day after tomorrow, so the splendor of Nature must wait while Nerdery calls. Thus, this weather-appropriate quote of the day, from the section in the book on hypothermia: "A patient is not considered dead until he or she is warm and dead; in other words, do not give up resuscitation efforts until the patient has been warmed." And on that cheerful note, it's back to the books.

Voluntarily snowbound

Madame L continues to taunt me (but I know she means it in a nice way) with reports of how much better the weather is in the Bay Area than in my frozen neck of the woods.

However. The other day I had parked my car on the street overnight, returning the next day to find it under several inches of snow. It was a wet snow, so all of the windows were covered, including the door windows. I got in to retrieve the scraper/sweeper, but instead, without really thinking, I just closed the door and sat there. It was quiet on the street, like it usually is during a snowfall, and inside the car the snow blocking the windows made for a sort of peaceful twilight. It was very relaxing to sit there for a while in the quiet half light.

Or maybe studying for the upcoming board exam just has me entirely too stressed out.

Snow Train

We got a bit of a snowstorm today and late this afternoon I was walking through it, heading for the library. At one point my path to the hospital complex crosses a bridge over railroad tracks, and I stopped to watch a train going by underneath. It looked quite beautiful in the snow, with a layer of white on each car covering the rust and giving off wispy streamers. The snow was heavy enough that I couldn't see more than ten or twelve cars ahead in the snowfall; the train just melted away into the whiteness car by car. Eventually the blinking red light on the last car was all that could be seen in the haze.

It all seemed sort of symbolic, but symbolic of what I don't know.

Ice Storm

Can no longer see out of the windows on the north side of our place because they're covered with a sheet of ice.

UPDATE: Went to get the mail and found that the front door, which also faces north, was iced shut. Managed to push it open about a foot so that I could slip out to get the ice scraper from the car. Hmm, tonight might be a good night to stay in.

Wintry Mix

As you may recall, I'm a big fan of the nifty forecasting artwork at the National Weather Service website. Today we are anticipating the infamous "Wintry Mix" -- anticipating it, because there's a 100% chance of experiencing it!

Drive carefully.

Hurricane Dean

Next year Lady M and I are planning to spend some time on the Gulf Coast of Mexico--I for a medical rotation, she for a vacation rotation. We'll be visiting The Former Hawkeyes, our good friends who spent time here in Iowa for fellowship training and are now inviting us to their home in Mexico for my training.

Their home is Veracruz, which is currently in the news as the point at which Hurricane Dean is making second landfall in Mexico. I just heard from them via e-mail, and they report that they're fine. We're worried, however, since their house is quite near the beach. We're all sending our best wishes to los hawkeyes anteriores as they weather the storm.

Typhoon Usagi

Typhoon Usagi hits southern Japan
Eighteen people were injured and thousands sought shelter as Typhoon Usagi struck Japan's southern island of Kyushu.

Here's a picture of Usagi:



You wouldn't think she could do all that much damage. Of course, she has grown a bit since this picture was taken.

Coming soon: Godzilla vs Usagi!

Tornado Liveblogging, Part 2

The weather here just got really bad and the National Weather Service is reporting a tornado on Doppler radar near one of the sites where Lady M works. Fortunately she's at another job site this evening. (This isn't a duplicate post--this is the second evening in a row this week of tornado activity in the vicinity!)

UPDATE (19:48) -- Spectacular bolt lightning and scary fast-moving very low clouds overhead, but otherwise seems less stormy at my location than yesterday Monday. The NWS reported the tornado to be moving at 45 mph, so if it was on the ground it's moved on by now. I've called Lady M; waiting to hear back from her. Hoping she's in the basement.

UPDATE (19:51) -- NWS confirms that the tornado is now on the other side of town and moving away. Our tornado warning is scheduled to expire in 10 minutes.

UPDATE (20:01) -- Worst of the storm seems to have passed (although you have to be careful, since tornadoes often form at the trailing edge). The local paper's web site covered last night's Monday's storms, but tonight's doesn't even show up on their home page. (I guess when you live in Iowa, there have to be at least two tornadoes on the ground before it's news.) NWS now confirms that the storm has moved out of the area and the tornado warning has expired.

UPDATE (20:12) -- It's quiet now and the rain has stopped (although it's very dark to the southeast, which is the direction the storm was moving). The NWS has this cheerful message for us:

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR RAPIDLY 
DETERIORATING WEATHER
CONDITIONS. SEEK SHELTER IF 
THREATENING WEATHER
APPROACHES. ALSO BE ON THE 
LOOKOUT FOR FLOODED ROADS
AND STREAMS. TURN AROUND...
DO NOT DROWN.

LATE UPDATE (21:42) -- Lady M is fine, the storm is long gone, and no reports of injuries or damage.

Tornado Liveblogging: Late Update

Spoke too soon earlier. There was some tornado damage in a town about 20 miles south of here, but no injuries reported. Most of this part of the state is under tornado watch/warning this evening, and there's very heavy rain and near-continuous lightning at the moment. Some local waterways have been approaching flood stage and the NWS is reporting "ponding" on area roads.