It wasn't just Kiryat Bialik...

Here's a youtube video of Hertzeliya (near Tel Aviv) on Sunday:



Here's an even more impressive film: one of my friends took this video on his way to work through Haifa yesterday.



(I hope he had both hands on the wheel... those are geysers!) Last night, I was on one of the streets in the video. The water(falls) had cleared, but slabs of asphalt lifted from the road littered the parking spaces.

Kiryat Motzkin used to have the nickname "Agam Motzkin"-- Motzkin Lake-- because it flooded so often in the wintertime. As Doron said in the comments on Sunday's post, the primary reason that Israeli streets flood so badly when we DO get rain likes in Israel's "yiyeh beseder" attitude: ehhhhh, there probably won't be bad rain this winter. Why would be possibly need to clean fallen leaves and trash out of our storm drains?

On the plus side, though, the air smells like springtime, and the grass in the yard is already greener. A strong breeze whips in through my open window. The sky is deep, clear blue. Time to go hang laundry outside! (Did I mention that hardly anyone in this country owns a dryer?)

Every long-term Israeli I meet says that winters used to be much colder and wetter here. In recent years, winters have been warm(ish) and dry, plunging the water level in the Kinneret to dangerous lows. Let's hope this winter marks the shift of weather back to old patterns rather than a blip in global warming.

Bring on the rains!