STORMS

One thing about Singapore that still amazes me are the surprise TROPICAL STORMS. It can be sunny as all hell and within two minutes, clouds arrive, a minute after that, the wind picks up and then in a matter of moments a torrential downpour of rain hits and it hits hard. People are running for any type of cover, covered bus stops become packed and every taxi in the city is suddenly busy. But then like it never even started, within minutes, the rain has stopped, the clouds disappear and voila, you have sun again. This usually happens 3-4 times a week. 

I bring up Storms because the other day was the worst. I usually leave the house at 7am for work and by that time it's light outside, today it wasn't because it was still dark from all the black clouds that were hanging around. Once I walked out of the building I was met by an extremely strong wind that was knocking around the trees about and for the first time in my entire Singapore adventure, I was cold. Cold! Me! The guy who has worn full length pants only three times in two months! 

I thought to myself "oh boy, this one is gonna be a doozy" and sure enough it was! I was going to walk to the MRT but I was smart enough to hail the first cab I saw because as soon as I got in, the rain fell and it fell hard! The torrential downpour engulfed the city, cars suddenly forgot how to drive and everything slowed down to a crawl as people dealt with the flood of rain. It rained the entire 25 minute cab ride to work and only subsided once I arrived, the black clouds stuck around for a while longer but then slowly but surely, the sun was back within the hour.

What would have made this storm extra cool is if it was accompanied by the usual hardcore thunder and lightning we get out here, alas poor Yorick, it wasn't meant to be. At least I snapped the above iPhone pic before the rain came.

Regardless, the storms in Singapore are pretty cool.