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Today I learned about Hector the Convector. Hector is, unexpectedly, a storm cloud. He hangs around an island group off the Australian coast. The islands, which I’d also never heard of, are called Tiwi and they have the most predictable weather.
From September to March each year, every afternoon at round 3pm, there is a thunderstorm as Hector forms and rumbles in. Hector was named by Second World War pilots who would use the big cloud as a navigational aid. For reasons hidden in the mists of time, they named the cloud Hector.
I found out about Hector from Magne, who told The Beavers about it in their group chat. I had to check it out because it sounded like something that Douglas Adams would have come up with rather than real. But, yes, Hector is real and has nothing to do with Arthur Dent.
The storm cloud forms because of various natural phenomena which meet over the Tiwi Islands, creating the ideal concatenation of events required to make thunder, lightning and rain.
I managed to find a time-lapse video of Hector forming.
What an astounding thing Hector is. When I see things like Hector, I am always amazed that most humans want to destroy nature. Mind you, I’m not sure how they would stop a thunderstorm from happened every day, like clockwork.
Speaking of strange names, we accidentally called Freya, Fruit Tray the other day. (Don’t ask me why because I can’t remember.) It’s a delightfully nonsensical name with the added benefit of starting with the letter ‘F’.
When we started calling her Fruit Tray, she ignored us by turning away and staring into space as if we didn’t exist. Now she’s a little more used to it. Plus, I guess that Tray sounds like Frey, to which we often shorten her name.
Anyway, I think she’s forgiven me.
And while on the subject of the dogs, they both finished their seasons today! Yay. No more nappies.
