Rain, rain?

I often get comments on this blog about the nice blue sky in so many of my photos. At first I wondered what people were going on about...but then I realised that what I take completely for granted - guaranteed blue skies practically non-stop from May to September - is not the norm everywhere. We're just lucky that way in this area.

The flipside of the blue sky is that it rarely rains. Nice for beachgoing, but not so great in the longrun for plants, animals and people. In fact, Apulia (this region of Italy) and the other regions of southern Italy are undergoing the process of desertification. Which means the transformation of land once suitable for agriculture into desert. Desertification can result from climate change or from human practices such as deforestation and overgrazing.

It looked like rain both yesterday and today...but...besides the clouds and distant thunder...no water came down from the sky.