Rainy Season

I see posts from friends on the East Coast bragging (or complaining) about snow and ice storms and shoveling. Meanwhile, here in Maui, we don't have four seasons. We have two: Mostly Sunny, and Mostly Rainy. America's "winter" more-or-less dovetails with Maui's Mostly Rainy Season.

While even West Maui (normally dry) gets a little rain this time of year, East Maui always gets most of it. That's because the wind blows at us from directly off the ocean, where the slopes of 10m,000+ foot Haleakala squeeze the water out of it.

The rains on the higher elevations pours down, making the streams and waterfalls swell and gush. I noticed driving into Kahului that Three Bears Falls was astonishingly explosive.

At this time of year, even when the sun is out, clouds cover more of the sky than blue does.

This photo, taken west of Lahaina (Napili, to be precise), shows how even not getting actual rain, affects the sunset.

And on the way home, I came upon another side-effect of mostly-rainy season: Erosion, which includes frequent rockslides along Hana Highway. (Downed trees are another hazard.)

I was lucky this time; I could easily drive around this slide. And that's usually how it goes. However, no matter how bad the blockage is, it won't be fixed until morning.