any ranchers live in Puerto Rico?

[Randall Twede]

im going there for next winter and most likely to stay. would be nice if i knew someone there who habla engleis.

[Tim Holloway]

Even better if you find someone who knows where the food is good. You've got me wanting some arroz con gandules, now. Some of my favorite recipes are Puerto Rican.

[Randall Twede]

its gonna be an adventure for sure. first thing i have to do is get an apartment and furnish it probably. i 'm pretty sure i will like the food there.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Randall Twede wrote:im going there for next winter . . . .

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim would have something to say about that.

[Randall Twede]

i don't follow you campbell

[Campbell Ritchie]

Somebody else will; maybe Tim H will let you know what I mean.

[Knute Snortum]

Something about West Side Story, I would guess.

[Campbell Ritchie]

I forget whether it was the Jets or the Sharks who were from PR or were of English‑speaking origin, but this YouTube link might help:-

[Randall Twede]

well im half fluent in spanish. i have good books and am working on it. from what i heard only 5% speak english.
im too old for hot Latinas

[Tim Holloway]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Somebody else will; maybe Tim H will let you know what I mean.

Nah. Went over my head, too. Don't know how Randall's situation relates to gang warfare in NYC.

Although one of my favourite cookbooks was written by a PR cooking show host who lives in Queens. Some great stuff in there.

A few useful words, though:

terremoto - earthquake

lluvias - rains, often torrential. Sometime huracán.

San José - the capital city, formerly the name of the island.
Puerto Rico - the island, formerly the name of the capitol city.
borriquenos - what the people call themselves.

Things to look for in a dwelling: storm resistance. I saw siding being ripped off a luxury hotel in real time a couple of years back on the news. Power support. The main generating stations are on the other side of the mountains from the capital and while the plants were mostly still operational, so much transmission wiring got trashed that the whole system was effectively nuked. Solar power alternatives got really popular after that.

Incidentally, being in a hurricane-prone area myself, I invested in a pair of 100w solar panels, a deep-cycle battery, charge controller and a tabletop icemaker. Most everything else that can go out after a major storm is easy to fake - especially since solar LED landscape lights and puck lights are really very cheap and bright these days. But when the refrigerator goes out... Generators are too much trouble. You have to feed them refined fuels. Worse, last time we had an outage in the neighborhood, people hauled out units that had been sitting in storage for 3 years and the rubber gaskets had rotted. Dripped gasoline on the engine. Solar is a lot quieter and you're never more than 93 million miles from a reliable fuel source.

And if you're not used to the tropics, the main difference between the daily afternoon rains and a hurricane is that hurricanes last for hours. I have actually flown out through both summer storms and a hurricane feeder band and the thunderstorm was a bumpier ride.

[Randall Twede]

well i've been to hawaii, similar climate. we have hurricanes here in texas so no biggie. its a no-brainer for me. apartment in san juan or tent in austin.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Tim Holloway wrote:. . . Nah. Went over my head, too. . . . gang warfare in NYC.

The song is about the differences between PR and NYC. If all the gangsters went to NYC, that would leave Randall's situation quite OK.

. . . Dripped gasoline on the engine.

That sounds dreadful. Did they catch fire?

Solar is a lot quieter and you're never more than 93 million miles from a reliable fuel source.

This site tells you all the gory details about distance from the nearest solar filling station. The distances vary. If you are in the States, you will be delighted to see th Sun moves to its farthest on 4th July

And if you're not used to the tropics, the main difference between the daily afternoon rains and a hurricane is that hurricanes last for hours. . . .

But the daily afternoon rains take about 15 minutes to get the water 3″ deep on the streets. My daughter and I got caught in such a downpour at Colchester once (and that's by no means tropical). No rain when we passed Sheepen Rd, tipping it down by North Station Rd, and 3 inches of water on the streets by Harwich Rd. You tend to notice it if you're on a bicycle. By the time we got to the Wivenhoe turn (=Colchester Rd Wivenhoe), there was not a drop of water to be seen and not a cloud in the sky.

[Tim Holloway]

I think PR would be more like Houston than Austin when it comes to tropical storms, but close enough.

Not to belittle the rains in Blighty - after all, they are legendary - but we specialise in bright sun at one end of the block and a solid grey wall of water at the other one. And in screaming hot muggy miserable days where you count the minutes until the afternoon deluge comes to cool you down. It really is the humidity, too. I felt worse in October than in late June. In June everything hasn't yet boiled up from the land to the sky.

Then there's the sideways storms. I recently discovered that there's a special design of umbrella that resists being turned inside out when you get caught in one of those.

Florida's main tourist alley is also one of the most thunderstorm-intense zones on Earth.

A small mercy is hail. Not that common and mostly pea-sized here. Texas, on the other hand has registered some seriously nasty stuff.

The main differences in climate between Florida, PR and Texas are owing to what surrounds them.  Texas has a lot of high dry and occasionally mountainous land to the west, where weather in this part of the world comes from. PR and Florida are surrounded by water, and while it's true that the northern border of Florida is land-locked, most of the Summer weather comes more from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. PR has mountains, which have their own meteorological properties and I can't speak for them, but if I was ever to return to my own tropical homeland, I'd seriously consider living someplace high enough to be cooler.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Tim Holloway wrote:. . . the rains in Blighty . . . are legendary . . .

Depending on where you live, the legend is actually inaccurate. Acording to Wikipedia, our average rainfall is <1″ (about 20mm) more than that well‑known near desert city, Jerusalem.
But, I remember 16th December 1973 when I had to stop cycling because I couldn't see the other side of the road through the rain (different area). Also (Sunday) 17th August 2003, when we saw rainwater running down the Church walls. We were inside at the time! People who didn't close their sunroofs in the car park weren't at all pleased about it. Like at Colchester, those dowpours barely lasted a quarter hour.

I can go about 100 miles to the west and go somewhere which has over six times the average rainfall we have.

[Tim Holloway]

Well cor blimey, 'ow are you supposed to get a bleedin' tan, then?

I had a dekko at the Met Office records, since Wikipedia is only as accurate as its fans let it be, but they're more concerned with high rainfall records than low, so I'll go with it. The 1-day record for rain was logged at 279 mm, though and we can get that without too much trouble here.

I went to Dallas once and it rained heavily and traffic on the highway stopped dead. I was expecting major flooding. Nope, just the rain. Rain stopped, people started moving. If we did that here, we'd be parked from June 20 to Halloween. A little thing like near-zero visibility doesn't slow us down.

Britain is big enough that it shows typical rainfall attrition patterns, where the water-bearing clouds come mostly from the west and by the time they've passed over the whole island, they've had a lot of opportunity to lose it, so it's not surprising what you report. Florida is only about 300km away from oceanic moisture at most so we don't see that sort of thing. Otherwise Disney World would be like the Sahara. We probably also have a lot more moisture in the air here since in the tropics we have more solar energy to lift more water. And generate more lightning. I actually live in one of the drier zones, since I'm on the eastern side, we only get about 130cm or so a year on average. The only reason you don't hear about catastrophic flooding here is because the land is so flat that the water spreads out instead of concentrating. Although at a rough guess one of the towns on the western side of the state does see about a 10m rise in river levels from drought to sustained heavy rains. Just from my own observations.

Puerto Rico, incidentally, starts at about a meter and goes up. The driest part is on the southern side of the island.

From a rough estimate of Texas climate data, I'd say that Austin compares precipitation-wise to where I live. Texas reverses the wet west/dry east because it's bounded by the continent on the west and gets backwash off the Gulf of Mexico.

[Campbell Ritchie]

I didn't know it is called rainfall attrition. I think there are places nearer the west coast with more rainfall higher up. This met. office map gives figures very similar to Wikipedia's. That is the first time I have actually seen those maps; I shall have to remember them.

[Tim Holloway]

I made up the term "rainfall attrition" actually. But take air full of moisture and pump it over long dry areas and statistically you can expect there to be less and less water to fall out as it moves. A more meteorologically-accurate term would be "precipitation attrition". Not necessarily rain, of course.

And one thing that can definitely cause a lot of water to get lost in a hurry is mountains. One of the wettest parts of PR is on the eastern side, where presumably prevailing winds blow up mountains and precipitate. Not an issue here, since the absolute highest point in the whole state is 300m. As they say, the highest mountain in Florida is Space Mountain.

[Campbell Ritchie]

It was called a rain shadow when I did my school Geography.