It's Gonna Be a Hot One

One of the great things about living in one place for (almost) a year is that you get to experience that place in every season - not just a week or a few months out of a year.  For example, I lived in the Netherlands one year from August to December.  I got to experience a touch of summer, the fullness of fall, and even flirted briefly with winter.  I was able to experience a decent sampling, but ultimately I totally missed the spring, which I hear is the best time to be in the Netherlands (think fields of tulips).

Coming to Liberia, I knew that I could expect warm weather year round, but I was anxious to see how that played out and all the subtleties and fluctuations of Liberian weather.  I grew up in Florida, a tropical weather locale, so I imagined it would be much the same.  Mostly warm and humid, but slight changes and occasional spurts of something a little different. 

Today I am here to report that Liberia truly does have 2 seasons, at best.  Largely referred to as Rainy season and Dry season, I have come to think of them as two parts of the same season: "wet and hot" and "no rain and hot".  Rainy season begins sometime in the spring... I have heard estimates as early as March and as late as July, and lasts throughout the summer until October or November.  During the rainy season the rain is almost constant.  There are reprieves now and then, but to see the sun is rare and to have a whole day without rain is even more unlikely.  I expected the rainy season to be somewhat cool, but after experiencing it I would describe it as "less hot."  The most striking thing about the Rainy season is the humidity... it is unreal!!  Mold grows on walls in a matter of days, and even a container of Morton salt left on the counter quickly disintegrated due to moisture. 

Once the rain clouds move out, the sun moves in and dry season has arrived.  Dry season is less humid, although still muggy.  The sun is strong and it feels like my skin is burning after about 1 minute standing outside without sunscreen; after all, Liberia is only about 6 degrees off the equator.  Dry season is very, very dry - it literally does not rain for the entirety of dry season, and it is very strange if even a few drops happen to fall.  Dry season begins when rainy season ends - sometime around November, and goes until the rains come back.  I hear that March is the hottest, so I'm really not too excited about March.

Despite my naturally warm-natured disposition (I get hot too easily) and the constant heat which leads to constant sweating, I do love Liberia... but that doesn't mean I wouldn't change her climate a little if I could.  On days when I'm sitting on a beautiful beach in January looking out over the crystal clear water and admiring the bold black rocks along the shore, I really can't complain.  That said, if some of you in the South want to ship some of your snow over here, I'm sure we could all benefit from an averaging of our extreme temperatures!