Snow in the tropics?!?

-
Is the "end of the world as we know it" approaching?

I've read earlier today that there's snow in Hawaii!! This US state, which has a typical tropical climate (according to Wikipedia), is one of the 49 states to experience snowfall this year. The only exception, currently, is Florida. It's interesting because snow is not normally seen in tropical parts of the world... well, maybe on mountain tops, just like in the Hawaiian islands.

After a quick search in the Internet, I found out that snow in the tropics is not so rare after all. Bummer. Here are a few links showing the other places where snow falls near the equator:




If snow is indeed possible in Hawaii and in other tropical places, would the Philippines also experience snow sometime in the future? If snow replaces frost in the colder regions of the country, I'm sure that some enterprising Pinoy will develop a real winter wonderland there. That will be a booming business... just look at the winter attractions that are available in the country during the Christmas holidays. On the downside, upland agriculture will be in disarray because of the unfavourable weather conditions. 

When winter becomes a permanent feature of Philippine climate, it would indeed be "the end of the world as we (Pinoys) know it".

The last time I got excited about the possibility of seeing snow in my hometown was when the Mount Pinatubo ash fall reached Calamba, Laguna in the 1990s. Everything on the ground was white and the sky was grey. We siblings started playing in the "snow" until I asked my the parents: if this is snow, why isn't it cold? They knew all along that it was volcanic ash.

Comments

  1. rochiecuevasJanuary 18, 2011 at 5:48 AM

    I just heard this from the news tonight: Heavy rains cause flooding in Saudi Arabia.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more