Hilo Rain

It rains a lot in Hilo.  Average rainfall per year here is 140-170 inches.  To put that in perspective, Detroit's (for all you Michiganders) average rainfall/precipitation is roughly 30-35 inches per year and L.A.'s (for all you SoCal'ians) is about 15 inches per year.

I've been lucky so far apparently.  Hilo is in a drought.  Last year it only had 65 inches (still double what Detroit had) and this year's starting out the same way.  But when it does rain here it doesn't mess around.  You've never seen a downpour like a Hilo downpour.  I got soaked walking approximately 7 feet, from my car door to the awning over my apartment door the other day.  Soaked!  I actually stood there at the door for a second in disbelief.  I looked at myself, sopping wet, then I looked at my car 7 feet away and thought, "this is impossible". 
Grammatical Query:  Do quotation marks go around thoughts?  Gia?  Dan?

Anyway, here's a pic from under my umbrella as I walked to my car today.  This was just a sprinkle though.

In contrast, on the other side of the island is Kailua-Kona, or just "Kona" as it's often called.  Kona is more like Southern California, very dry.
Here's me over on that side of the island enjoying the dryness and the sun.

Also, I don't think I've ever been actually woken up by rain before.  Yes, I've been woken up by thunder and lightning, but it was raining so hard the other night, in such massive quantities that the sound of it hitting the roof woke me up and I thought it was Pearl Harbor all over again in Hawaii, but this time in the Hilo Harbor!  I looked out the window and saw no Japanese fighter planes, only water falling from the sky.  An Aircraft Carrier-load of it.  Sometimes it will rain like that for about 30 seconds and then stop completely and the sun will come back out.  So, unlike SoCal where I once watched (Cindy knows the story) crazy, collagen lipped, fake-boobed housewives run for their lives at the site of a few drops of rain (they were probably afraid of melting); here it's just business as usual.  True story about those Cali women though.  One woman backed her Cadillac Escalade up to the grocery store door and blocked the whole door so she could get her groceries in the back without getting wet.  The manager looked at her in disbelief and politely asked her to move as she was causing an incredible safety hazard to all the other customers.  Eh, it's California, not surprising really.