300,000 Secular Israelis ‘Brave Heavy Rain’ to Visit Parks Over Rosh Hashanah

Despite today’s downpour in Eretz Yisroel, hundreds of thousands of non-religious Israelis visited national parks and natural reserves over “the long Rosh Hashanah weekend,” as reported in Haaretz and according to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Jewish National Fund. Some 300,000 secular Israelis spent the day outdoors all over the country, while the most popular sites were the Ashkelon National park, Ein Gedi Natural reserve, and the Carmel Mountains. At the same time, religious Jews across the country were in shuls and botei medrash davening for a year of bracha and yeshuos.During the afternoon, the amount of rain that had fallen in the Golan Heights had reached a peak of 70 millimeters, after only several hours of downfall. Only several millimeters of rain fell in Tel Aviv and Yerushayalim, similar to the amount measured along the coast and at the Sea of Galilee.

The rain is expected to continue to fall tomorrow and could cause floods in the southern areas of the Judea Desert and the Negev, as well as in cities throughout Israel.

This type of rainy whether is unusual so early in winter and is the result of a cold front that blew in from Turkey and the Black sea, as explained by the meteorological services.

These records coincide with the upcoming year’s weather forecast which has predicted a rise of approximately 25 percent in rainfall, relative to the last year’s data.

Due to this, the Water Authority said that this will be a good time to reduce water consumption, because with the drop in temperatures, the amount of water that evaporates lessens, which allows plants to survive on less water – between 20 and 30 percent less – without damaging them.

{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel, with Haaretz}