Our first autumn rain arrived today and it´s been a good kind of rain. I took the above photoraph this morning from the Mirador overlooking the village of Cómpeta, which shows a different kind of scene than the last time you saw it.
Often, at this time of year, after a hot summer, our first rains come in the form of huge thunderstorms and we are deluged with so much water that most of it runs off the parched earth without doing much good.
Yesterday we had grey skies, and this morning we were first of all treated to gentle rain which gradually became harder as the morning progressed. It´s stopped raining now, which is good because there is opportunity for the water to be absorbed into the earth before the next rainfall.
I only wrote about the water level in Lake Viñuela last week, and whilst there wont have been much difference made this morning, we are expecting heavy rainfall over the next couple of days.
Not only did we enjoy the rain, but this little chap had a great time too. He´s a regular visitor and usually hides amongst some plant pots near the house, often digging down into them, dislodging the contents.
UPDATE – 29TH SEPTEMBER: Yesterday (Friday 28th) we experienced very heavy rain, with lightning and thunderstorms throughout much of the day. The Axarquía area, east of Málaga, suffered less than surrounding areas, with up to 77 litres of water per square metre of land. Today has been cloudy with showers, but a normal service of wall-to-wall sunshine is expected to resume tomorrow 🙂
Click here to see videos and reports of flooding from other parts of Málaga province.
You might enjoy looking at these articles:
East of Málaga: The Weather in Autumn
Patatas a lo pobre: Poor man´s potatoes
Photographs I love …. and why!
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Here it is, Rommel! Hope you are having a great weekend 🙂
People are like praying for rain, people in Europe. Us in California, at least here in SoCal, as far as I know, had one rain this year.
By the way, the Spain riot pics I saw all over the place was pretty graphic! Yikes!
In Spain, the rain doesn´t fall during the summer at all, usually. By the time the autumn rains come, the ground is very hard and dry and often the rainfall runs off as it can´t penetrate the ground – causing flooding.
Hmmm the austerity measures are biting hard now. There are demonstrations in Madrid, but all is peaceful here, east of Málaga 🙂
We have spring rain, and I haven’t seen any frogs around. Yours looks really cute. That first pic is amazing.
Thanks AD – he IS quite cute, but my hubby gets cross with him sometimes because he upends his plant pots! 😉
Nice to hear some good news – fingers crossed the water continues to arrive in measured doses all weekend 🙂
Well, we have had a huge deluge this morning with quite a thunderstorm too. It´s calm for the moment though 🙂
Hope things reverted to ‘gentle’ over the weekend 🙂
Yes – gentle over the weekend and now back to sunshine for our trip to Toledo – yaay!
That’s handy – though Toledo is forever in grim grey weather to match it’s grey stone buildings – I’ve never been there in the sunshine, isn’t that strange! Have a great trip 🙂
Mr. Frog does not look too happy there. I think a first rain is a beautiful thing. But I do prefer the sun. 🙂
Mmmmm me too, but we DO need the rain 🙂
Love your first shot! You can almost smell the first September rain….
Yes, you can, can´t you?
Thanks for your comment, Ioanna and for always supporting my blog 🙂
My pleasure Marianne! I 🙂
Ooooh I like your friend – he looks pretty big! Your first picture is lovely too, that flowery mosaic on red is so pretty!
He´s quite big – but as far as toads go, he´s probably pretty average. I did get down on my hands and knees on the gravel, right in front of him, for this shot – so I expect he looks larger than life!!
Did you look at the comparison between the rainy shot and the previous shot from the same vantage point I took earlier in the summer? Monte Maroma in the background was completely hidden yesterday with low clouds.
It´s raining again as I type this – we are due heavier rain today and tomorrow.
Some people are afraid of frogs – you can probably chase them around with that frog – it looks big enough to have extra scary potential, lol.
Busy looking for it, thanks.
Here’s it’s also raining but not as much as there. Enough thought to prevent me from running this morning – that’s not good!
I think I would have been quite scared if he had jumped on my head, as I was pretty close! LOL
We should have been going on a long walk today with a Walking Group, but I think we are going to stay home and eat comfort food instead 🙂
Comfort food sounds really good right about now – I hope that doesn’t include frog legs? In which case the little guy will be moving around in his wheelchair – I hope the wheels are properly oiled – few things are as annoying as squeaky wheels 🙂
I was thinking more of home-made cream of leek soup with crusty bread and delicious Spanish tortilla 🙂
They’ll ADORE you for that! You reckon you can get used to a life of being served by eternally-legged froggies?
LOL 🙂
They can froggie polka for you!
There it is! Wow that’s a lot of cloud cover!
These 2 images are just wonderful, the perfect setting of the first, and the very frog/toad – he/she looks like a character 🙂
Thanks EllaDee! Oh yes, I can vouch for the toad being quite a character – especially when he upends the pots with seedlings that my hubby has recently planted and then goes to sleep inside the pots 🙂
I love that first picture! A most arresting shot! Still waiting for the first rains in Victoria. It’s been a lovely, long hot summer. But the rains are coming…
I didn´t have chance to wait for the cloud patterns to shift as it was raining as I took the shot, but the mountain backgrounds can make for very dramatic cloud formations. I´m pleased with how it came out though – quite a change from the one earlier in the summer 🙂
Thanks Sally 🙂
oh you have no idea how much we need rain like that here! There was some rain on the north of the island, and, I hear, in Gran Canaria yesterday, but nowhere near enough as yet. Just worried about all the topsoil washing away. It’s just dust after so long without rain.
Still, we need it badly.
That´s the problem with the first rains, isn´t it? Yes, we had good rain yesterday, so that should have helped, but we are due some heavy rain today and tomorrow. We will have to see if the topsoil gets washed away – hope not.
The rainbelt is moving north, Linda – so not your way this time. Hopefully soon 🙂
Although our climates are so very different, i can see how welcome these first Fall rains must be for your area. Enjoy!
I usually enjoy the first rains with some trepidation! I always hope for gentle rain first, which we have had now – it´s when the really heavy rain starts I always worry about landslips because of the mountainous terrain.
Heavy rain expected today and tomorrow …. we´ll see 🙂
Superb shots!
Rains are not always this pretty here. The roads flood and the power almost always shuts down for a while! So the heat and the rains are like the devil and the deep blue sea 🙂
Because of the mountains, the clouds usually make for quite dramatic photos around here, though if we have huge thunderstorms instead of gentle rain we can also get flooding. Of course, it´s quite a different kind than if the land was flat. Looks as though we are going to have heavy rain today and tomorrow, so I expect we might lose our electricity for a while 😦
I want to share your joy at the rains (really, I´m trying!) but we´re only home for a week and escaping the rains of the UK and I sooooo wanted some sunshine! Oh well, next year 😉
OH NO!! Did you bring the UK rain with you, Tanya? 😉
It should clear up at the weekend 🙂
I think I can (almost) take the blame for it! Hope it does clear up as it´s our village fiesta this weekend, although it almost always rains for it 😉
Oh does it? Well, you should have known to avoid it then 😉
According to http://www.eltiempo.es/ it´s heavy rain today and tomorrow but clearing up on Sunday. Let´s hope so 🙂
Have a great time!
Great photos! I am ready for fall rains too – maybe this weekend.
Thanks – let´s keep our fingers crossed! 🙂