Yesterday it was hotter than the surface of the sun, as the home management guy declared.... And I was looking for a bit of a reprieve from the heat...
So when a big dark cloud grew out of the Southeast, Loyce and I decided to go see if we could find some cooler air.... We headed out on highway 60 East up into the mountains... The lightning cracked and hit the ground in front of us and we drove thru the gust front about when we passed the arboretum out by Superior....
From there on East to Miami and Globe the heavens just opened up and the temperatures plummeted to about 70....It seemed almost cold.. We messed around out in Miami and Loyce went to the local quilt shop there coming out with fat quarters of what she called Southwest pattern and colors...
Of course I always look at those huge mine tailings piles and wonder if they will ever be put back into their hole in the ground.... I went into the Wal Mart out there and walked sort of slow letting the rain soak into my shirt...
The fun of this was that as we drove back into Apache Junction the rain followed us into Mesa.. The rain was soaking our new bushes and trees which really perked things up..
Fast forward to this morning and it didn't really warm up into the nineties very early... I took advantage of this and rode the motor cycle up into the mountain to our North.. It was a good morning for a ride, but there isn't much ground around here that I haven't ridden over before.. Still I enjoyed the ride..
But again today, the afternoon produced that really dark spot to our South and East... Only today it wasn't so far out over the mountains... I headed over to the storage lot to work on the utility trailer, and finally decided to bring it back to the house to load up some of the tools that we have been using in our move...
As I was loading things, we had another haboob wind event with dust... But it was mostly West of us headed into Phoenix... That didn't stop the rain, we were deluged. Remember that discussion about the mulch.. Our back yard was flooded with rain, and if we would have had mulch, I would be out there with a rake right now trying to sort the wood chips out of the pebble rock.... Thank goodness we don't have any mulch....
Tonight has been the Olympics on TV so it been a slow evening...
Retired Rod
A DIFFICULT PHONE CALL FOR KELLY AND I TODAY
15 hours ago
I know the new shrubs loved the rain, and it's just what they need to get a good start. I never worried too much about lightning when in a car, but the weather channel is running warnings to stay inside when you hear thunder. I still don't think I would worry too much, except if it was a big storm I'd rather be in a building anyway. You are getting all sorts of weather out there.
ReplyDeleteWhen do the monsoons and haboobs end down there? I'm sure hoping it's before we get there. But they need the water so badly. We'll have a zillion weeds on our lot to clear out.
ReplyDeleteHaboobs should be over by about Labor Day, of course the weather isn't subject to a schedule on a calendar.... LOL
DeleteThank you for explaining about why mulch is not a good idea there. I didn't consider it an "argument", though. I just didn't know. Now I get it.
ReplyDeleteArgument is a poor choice of words, I went a changed it to discussion.....
DeleteHave you told us where the name Haboobs originated? It's a good one!
ReplyDeleteTalk about weather extremes - it's either bone dry or raining bucketfuls.
Origin of haboob: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob
Delete"A haboob (Arabic: هَبوب "strong wind") is a type of intense duststorm carried on an atmospheric gravity current. Haboobs occur regularly in arid regions throughout the world."