News from Chile - earthquake recovery and snow in the desert

Temp houses in Chile last year

A year ago, the Shoreline Rotary clubs sponsored an exchange student from Chile, Francisca Perez Heredia. While she was living in Shoreline, a devastating earthquake hit Chile. It was centered very close to her home town of Talca, and for several days she was unable to get news of her family.

After the quake, the Chileans began rebuilding. Their most urgent need was housing. Shoreline Rotary spearheaded a drive to raise money for temporary housing while Talca was rebuilding.

I wrote to Francisca to ask how things were going in Talca and she responded:

"Well I came back to my country last year on July 30, 2010, because my exchange year was for only a year. 

"Actually the situation in Chile is very normal, lot of new constructions, buildings....especially in my city, Talca. has had a fast breakthrough in post-quake Rebuilding. best constructions for stores, schools, churches, museums.... 

"About your question of recent quakes. well actually we always have many quakes in our country, even happened to be a normal thing for us. just only now the difference is that Chile is every day more prepared for future earthquakes and Tsunamis."

Photo by IlCiclone

Carl Dinse, SAN WeatherWatcher, also filed a story about Chile. He may have found a place with stranger weather than ours here in the "Convergence Zone":

The Atacama desert in South America, is one of two of the driest places on Earth. On July 3rd - July 8th a cold front hit the desert dumping 31.5" of snow over the entire desert.  

Now, normally the annual precipitation rate in that desert is 0 - 0.04 inches of rain, mostly from fog mist. Some spots have seen no precipitation for over 500 years. I'm actually surprised that this story did not get more media coverage. 

Our unusual heat wave in the mid-west has been a distraction to what else has been going on out there. This odd weather around the world may not directly impact Shoreline or Lake Forest Park, but it's an indication that some weather patterns have changed, or are changing.  

The Puget Sound Region is not only the most difficult place in the world to forecast weather, but it is also one of the most effected places in the world by any variations in global climate.