"The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind"

During summer time in the desert, a little phenomenon happens every day around 5pm. It's called a Monsoon. This is how "flash-flooding" happens. It's when it rains SO much and SO fast that the hard desert ground can't absorb the moisture. It has to go somewhere, so gravity takes over.


Every year in the Phoenix area, we would turn on the 6 o'clock news and see what idiot tried to drive through the flash-floods that evening. It was usually something like a Hummer H2 with shiny rims. An SUV that has never seen dirt, but has commanded the full confidence of it's out-of-town owner who thinks it can drive through anything. Soon he realizes that without a snorkel NOTHING can drive through a street-turned-raging-river with 5 feet of instant water. The helicopters are called...the news arrives...people risk their lives saving the idiots, while we all watch. Fascinating. And it happened almost every evening.

Down here on the farm it's a little different. People down here have been living with the summer monsoons for generations, and some of the trucks actually DO have snorkels because they actually DO drive them off the road. In fact, they're driven OFF road more then ON road. Usually, though, everyone just stays at home when the storm comes.

So what is a Monsoon like?

If you LOVE having water poured on your head out of a bucket,

If you love watching extreme lightening and hearing thunder, or ever thought about being a "storm-chaser",

If you liked the movie "Twister", but didn't care for the tornadoes (since we only rarely get SMALL funnel clouds....sometimes),

If you LOVE being completely FREAKED out by weather,

Then, you will LOVE the monsoon....and you will have the chance to love it every day!

We wake up to a clear sunny sky. (So clear and sunny that I'm going to start working on my tan in the mornings.) It's beautiful. Then, at about 5pm (you can set your watch by it), the sky darkens and the black clouds roll in. The wind gusts start and that is when I take the pillows and cushions off the patio furniture and bring them inside. Last night, the wind blew my hummingbird feeders right off their hooks.

Then, the lightening moves in and starts announcing it's presence....not very subtle! After that, the water pours out of the sky. This only lasts for about 10 minutes before someone up there turns off the switch and the water stops. Instantly. So much water is on the ground now, though, that some people are stranded when the river is washing over their driveways. No worries, though, just wait another 20 minutes and the river will be cross-able.

When I was a little girl, growing up in California and experiencing the "weak" rain storms of the Sierra Nevadas, I always wondered how Noah would have needed an ark after 40 days of rain. It rains, like, every DAY in Seattle. How could a little rain possibly create THAT much water....enough water to cover the entire earth? Even if it WAS 40 days, it still didn't jive.

I understand now.

A forty-day, forty-night Desert Monsoon? Now THAT'S a lot of water!