Usually, this time of year, when the temperatures are over 100 degrees, we start getting some monsoon rains.
So, yesterday when the dark clouds began moving in we would get some rain, and we did.
But only after some strong winds, reminding us much of a coming hurricane on the gulf coast.
Usually, wind gust in the desert doesn’t blow off the green olives on our patio tree,
but they did yesterday.
As the front moved through, we started to get some rain.
We received about one-quarter inch, the first rain in two months.
Images by kenne
Looks a bit like the end of the world! Glad you got some rain. We need it here, too, but there seems to be no chance.
Good report and pass the martinis 🙂
Did the rain help the fires any? I know that wasn’t much, but perhaps there is more in your future. That sounded like quiet some wind.
Unfortunately, not much.
Ah, yes, the monsoon.
I would really like to share another one of my “monsoon” stories.
When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my Dad had left on business for a couple of days leaving Mom to try and keep us kids occupied. So, one fine evening she took my baby sister and me to watch a Haley Mills movie at a drive-in theater. I’m pretty sure it was the one near the intersection of 22nd Street and Alvernon. Looking at Google Earth, I see that this particular drive in is long gone and is now only a memory.
Anyhow, as we sat waiting for the movie to begin as it got dark, I saw that much of the southern and southeastern sky was filled with beautiful, sparkling lightning. “Oh Mommy, look at the lightning!”
She told me, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to that. That’s only heat lightning like they had in the summer in California when I was growing up.”
Yeah, right. “Heat lightning”. Well, half way through the movie this thing moved in. As Tom Clavin wrote in his book “Tombstone”, in Arizona “it doesn’t rain very often but when it does it rains hard”. Man oh man, does it ever!
Within ten minutes the whole theater began filling with water and people tried to make a mad dash for the exit. We just barely got out of there in time – a few people weren’t so fortunate and had their engines flooded.
We headed for home but didn’t get very far. Back in those days (around 1960) many roads on the east side of town had few bridges yet. We soon came to a flooded dip gorged with rapidly running water. So Mom turned around and took another route home – or tried to – only to encounter another flooded wash. So, we ended up at an all-night doughnut shop on 22nd Street where we went in, Mom bought us doughnuts and milk and we waited for the water to go down. There was nothing else to do.
And so it was. Times have changed today and yet, still, it doesn’t rain much there but when it does it rains hard!