while we slept

Maybe it is because we are all getting older, but some of the smallest things in life can be the most pleasant.

Rain, for instance.

During the summer, the combination of heat and humidity can be a bit discomforting here. Fans help. But tropical weather can be as heavy as a terry cloth robe. The only thing that offers relief is rain. Heavy rains.

Last night, we received our first heavy rains of the summer. Had I not heard it in the night, I would have known it had rained solely by stepping out of my bedroom this morning. The temperature was down and the air had a freshness to it we have not felt in over a month now.

That got me thinking about what the broader weather picture looked like. I usually start every summer morning here by thumbing through the National Hurricane Service's site. But I am have been a bit lax lately.

A "head cold" (at least, that is what I am calling it) has kept me off my feet for a few days, and has rather diminished my intellectual curiosity about tracking summer storms. So, I was a bit surprised to discover one of the disturbances I had been watching days ago had turned into a tropical storm. Cristina by name -- and that the service predicted Cristina would be a hurricane by tomorrow afternoon.

Now, that is quite an event to have slept through. But like all cyclonic activity, the question is not only how it is classified, but where it is going.

Very few tropical storms or hurricanes directly affect this area of the Mexican coast, but they can. Patrica and Jovan have rumbled across us since I have lived here. Most give us a glancing blow before heading up to Baja to do their worst there.

Cristina appears to be taking a different track. If the storms proceeds as predicted, it will head out to sea and die out some time next week.

But it is early in the season. While we can do without a hurricane, the rain will always be welcome.