Arizona Monsoon and a Spider

The monsoon activity this season has been particularly colorful, with lots of fun fireworks. Here's a sample of images from last night's storm system.





The lightning was concentrated just over the horizon, so my attempts at capturing a nice bolt weren't quite as successful as I'd hoped. These pictures remind me more of some of the scenes from the recent "War of the Worlds" movie than anything else. I kept expecting one of the machines to rise up over the ridge at any moment.

After the storm we had a visitor to our back step. Might be our last tarantula before we leave in a little over a week.

Fire in the Sky

The monsoon is in full swing now, which means that the evening skies tend to be filled with storm clouds. I glanced outside about an hour ago and everything had a subdued orange tint, not that different than what it was like in Fairbanks when the city was shrouded in wildfire smoke. No wildfires tonight, though. Just a brilliant sunset illuminating the monsoon storms.

And behind our house was this monster cell. Although it looks more menacing than I think it actually is. We only spotted one flash of lightning in the 30 minutes we were outside with the dogs.

My task over the next two weeks is to try to capture some pictures of some of the lightning storms that we get, like this guy did.

I was playing around with the flash on our way back to the house this evening and got this photo of Sonja (the ghostly figure standing to the right of the yield sign) with Harvey and Luna. I thought it was interesting that Harvey's eyes glow orange, while Luna's glow green. Cool, huh?

Aren't Deserts Usually Dry?

I guess this one isn't. At least not during the monsoon season. It's pretty crazy just how wet it's been lately. This afternoon we had a helluva thunderstorm which dumped a butt-load of rain over only about an hours time. 45 minutes later we get a call from the National Weather Service asking to keep an eye on Beaver Creek, since it had just crested at Montezuma Well and they wanted us to let them know when it crested at the Castle.

Another 45 minutes later, the creek suddenly transforms from a tiny little bubbling brook into what you see below over a span of approximately five minutes.



I'm kinda liking this whole monsoon thing. I've been pretty amazed at how regular the cycle is once it sinks into the area. Clear skies in the morning, but by 2pm the thunder starts to roll. Then by 8 in the evening it clears back up. It's done that practically every day for the last two weeks now. And after nearly 30 days of high temps over 100 degrees, we've finally gotten a break. Haven't hit triple digits now for six days. I'm liking this late summer desert climate!