Climate Weirdness  

Yesterday's burst of warm weather (around 23 degrees I think) seems to have convinced the local plant life that Spring has begun a month or so early, with all the wattle trees in full bloom today. Hopefully the return of cooler weather won't cause them too much grief.

Compared to Somalia (a real example of a post-collapse state, even if Saudi Arabia is just a good swim away) our weird weather is just a minor aberration, with reports of snowfalls there for the first time.

The first snowfall on this part of the world has claimed one life and caused extensive damage to properties. Puntland, northeastern part of Somalia has never recorded snowfall before last night when snow storms with high winds destroyed homes in Rako town.

The storm left a blanket of snow on the ground, something residents had never seen in their lives before. Aside from this unexplained snowfall on this tropical land, Somalia has experienced very strange weather in the past few months.

Floods killed people and forced rivers to overflow banks in almost all parts of the country. Many cities from Hargeisa in the north to Baladweyn in central were affected badly by heavy rains and floods. Many people were killed and thousands of livestock washed away by this strange weather. The country is still struggling to recover from last month’s killer weather.

With no effective central government, Somalia doesn’t have weather prediction or climate monitoring systems in place. Somalis think this unusual weather and last night’s previously unheard of snowfall are part of the global warming phenomena.