Partying with Mother Nature: Experiencing Weather Events Around The Globe

Nestled quietly in a valley in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, I spent my first twenty-one years without any major weather events.

Our house was up a steep hill, so the annual flooding that occurred in pockets of the city never affected us. We were, however, affected by the droughts that ravaged the extremely humid region from time to time.

Living around the globe has brought me many new weather experiences.

Let's begin with thunderstorms and the "storm of the decade."

I was living in Perth, Western Australia, a city that'd had its problems with occasional flooding, but I'd been fortunate to live in homes that weren't affected.

In late March 2010, I experienced the worst thunderstorm I've ever encountered. It was nicknamed "The Storm of the Decade" and that it was. I'd had back surgery just over a month before and it was my first week back behind the wheel of my car. I'd recovered extremely well, but sitting for too long antagonized the operation site, so I had to be careful by taking breaks to stand up and move around.

A storm was coming in which looked serious. News outlets warned people to get home as soon as possible and most of my colleagues were planning to leave the office soon. I wasn't taking any chances, so around 4 p.m. on a Monday afternoon, I said goodbye to my coworkers and jumped into my little Toyota hatchback to head home.

I didn't get very far before coming to a screeching halt on the Graham Farmer Freeway, joining a solid line of traffic with others rushing to do the same. Inching forward, the sky became more ominous as I entered the mile-long tunnel built to funnel east-west traffic away from the busy CBD. A drive that would take only a minute or two on any given day, took more than twenty minutes.

Unbeknownst to me, I had just been granted a little Divine intervention in the form of shelter. A day later, I found out I had avoided a massive hailstorm with ice pellets the size of golf balls damaging many cars in the Perth region.

I came out the other side of the tunnel into a quickly darkening sky. As I merged onto the Mitchell Freeway, an eerie purple glow filled the horizon, a shade I'd never seen before, and I knew something nasty was on its way. It was nearing 5 p.m. and I could no longer see more than a metre in front of me, even with the high beams on. Fear set in. To that point, I had taken everything in stride but this was completely different.

I crawled along the freeway as a deluge of rain fell around me. After an hour, I finally made it to my offramp, a trip that would ordinarily take about seven minutes. The average Australian highway is three lanes, but due to the on and offramps at this juncture, there were five. I had to move into the furthest lane to avoid the swimming pool now filling the other four, swiftly sliding back into the offramp leading up the hill.

I navigated flooded roads, at one point having to mount the curb as I reached my street. Nothing felt better than sliding into my small garage and pulling the old roller door down, scooping up my scared kitty and cradling his purring body as I reassured him that all would be fine.

I lost power about an hour after getting home, but was pretty lucky to sustain no damage bar a windswept trellis and some debris from the surrounding trees.

I will never forget that storm.

Onto Hurricane Grace in Mexico.

Moving on from "the storm of the decade" and into the tropical weather patterns of the Mexican Gulf, I experienced my first (and only) hurricane in late 2021. Thankfully, Grace ended up being Category 1, which is basically a glorified tropical storm, but she still did some damage.

For a few days before Grace was due to make landfall in Playa Del Carmen, Quintana Roo, I meandered along the beach and through the streets watching as people boarded up windows and stacked sandbags against the foundations of their homes and stores. I wondered how my Airbnb ground-level studio apartment would hold up against the gale-force winds and hoped I would be safe.

I took a walk along the beach in the morning, looking out at the literal calm before the storm, noticing mostly clear skies. After work, I wandered down again to see that a little gray was now mixed in with the clear skies but nothing looked treacherous.

Grace was due to make landfall at 1 a.m. The initial winds woke me around 11 p.m. and then again shortly after 3 a.m. as she huffed and puffed her way through the coastal tourist town. I peered out into the black void of the night, straining my eyes to see what was going on. The sound left nothing to the imagination of the ferocity of the wind.

Unable to see or do much, I returned to bed and slept through much of the chaos, waking to the calm after the storm the following morning. I peeked out the windows to survey the damage. The shade sail outside my door had been ripped clean from the wall, plants were overturned in their pots, and the road had become a small river with floating debris, some branches and leaves from nearby palm trees.

The power was out, but the gas still worked. As I need coffee in the morning almost as much as I need breath, I heated a pot of water on the stove and sipped my morning elixir as I watched a local gentleman patiently clean up, sweeping excess water down the storm drains with an old broom. He worked tirelessly for hours and my respect for him grew with each swish of the brush.

Although this is not a hurricane for the record books, it was my first and I enjoyed the rush.

A little earthquake in Costa Rica.

Despite living in Wellington, New Zealand for four years, well-known as a prominent earthquake zone, the strongest earthquake I ever encountered was in San José, Costa Rica.

It was just before midnight in late June 2019 and I was sleeping very peacefully on a solid wood bed in my furnished rented room in the north-east pocket of the city. I was jolted awake, my eyes opening groggily as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. The clothes in my closet were swaying as if to a silent song only they could hear.

As my muddled mind registered what was happening, I looked over to the hanging slat blinds on the other side of the room, and they, too, were dancing in unison with the silent song. Earthquake, I thought as I tried to figure out what I should do.

Just as I started to get up to make my way to the doorway (thank you American disaster movies for my education), the rumbling stopped and the blinds slowed their energetic dance. I got out of bed and padded to the window to peer out into the night. No flashing lights, no collapsed buildings or car alarms going off, no people running out of their houses. I guess all is well, I thought as I took one last look and crawled back into bed.

My big earthquake adventure was over, and I fell asleep almost as quickly as I had been woken.

Winter flooding in South Africa.

Having lived around the world, experiencing the occasional flooding is not unusual for me. I grew up in a valley where the local Msunduzi River flooded every year, but we were never affected. Friends in Australia experienced flood damage on multiple occasions during my decade there, but again, it had no effect on me. San Antonio, Texas' drainage system was a disaster and I had to drive slowly and carefully along the flooded streets and highways a few times, but my home was fine.

Earlier this year, I returned to visit my family in my homeland of South Africa, and as the cold, wet winter set in, I was affected by significant flooding. 2024 brought some of the worst flooding the country had ever seen. The beachfront road in the small coastal village often flooded during high tide swells, and every now and then, the garage and downstairs apartment flooded which had caused my father great frustration.

Having lost my father a few months prior, it was up to me to take care of the flooding issues this time. A callous grew on my hands as I gripped the squeegee handle, moving strategically through the garage and sweeping the excess water down the driveway. More water ran in as quickly as I pushed it out, the saturated mountain funnelling any excess through the house's foundation in a steady stream.

It is an experience I would be happy never to relive.

And now for some smaller weather events.

I have stared in awe at incredible flashes of lightning in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica, the accompanying electric boom of thunder sounding a little too close for comfort on some occasions. One strike severed a very large tree branch which came crashing down onto the roof of my little cottage in Texas. Another streaked into the ground across the street from my basement apartment in Ontario as I watched on in reverence.

Fortunately, I was nowhere near being a victim of the lightning strikes, but the natural phenomenon sets my soul on fire.

Between Perth, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, and the Cape Region in South Africa, gale force winds have battered me around for the majority of the last two decades.

Spending most of my life in South Africa and Australia, heatwaves have been a constant companion. I have placed ice blocks on the bottom of my feet in the absence of air conditioning to fall asleep, and taken more cold showers than I care to mention.

During my five years in Canada, I experienced temperatures below minus twenty and even a small blizzard or two. I have marvelled at the ice sculptures formed by freezing rain and almost broken bones as I slipped and slid on icy sidewalks and streets, all the while mumbling curse words as I tried to regain my balance.

Smaller weather events, while not quite the rush of the larger ones, give me an appreciation of the might of Mother Nature.

Near Misses.

Unfortunately, wildfires have become all too common globally, but I have been fortunate enough to be saved from losing anything to one. I have closed windows and doors to prevent smoke inhalation as thick smoke settled all around me.

I have had tornado warning alerts on my phone but have never seen one. I've driven past landslides and dodged massive sinkholes in the road from weeks of incessant rain.

I have survived more droughts than I care to count. South Africa, Australia, and the Southern United States all have problems with water restrictions during the long summer seasons. I have learned to shower quicker than most people, am very cautious about running the faucet for too long, and have dipped buckets into a water tank to flush toilets and brush my teeth many times.

All-in-all, I have had a fair share of what Mother Nature can do when she’s mad. Although the intensity of her fury can be terrifying, standing in the awe of her might makes me feel alive!

Please feel free to buy me a coffee if you like what you read.