How Cool!

Your Monday Photo Shoot: In a picture, illustrate how hot it is where you are. This can be be something as simple as a picture of a pool packed with kids, or, if you want to get really creative, something more imaginative. - J.S.




Remember the picture on the left? This was the temperature in Tucson on June 21st. My has car said it was 110 degrees or higher every day for the past month. But not today, I think. Although the coming of the monsoon has quadrupled the relative humidity around here, the actual temperature has fallen quite a bit. The official high today was "only" 100 degrees, and it was down to 84 degrees by 6 PM. You see, it rained this evening.

It wasn't exactly a gullywasher. It rained a little bit off and on, but there was no lightning and it never poured. Still, check out the car's thermometer at 7:30 tonight. In the past I've often seen it up over 90 degrees late into the evening.

Tuffy isn't fond of thunder or lightning (no surprise there), but she seems to be pleased with the wet back yard. Maybe she'll stop knocking over her water dish for a while. We think she does it to cool her feet.

When we get a decent rain, there's always a puddle that lines our side of the street for a while. Yes, that's our mostly yellow-to-brown grass, and our blue mailbox. You can tell we needed the rain! We still do.

If my sunset pictures from tonight aren't the best in-town ones I've had yet, it won't be because Nature didn't cooperate. I've never seen the colors brighter. I drove around until dusk, taking a few dozen photos...okay, it was more like 50. Satisfied? I'll show you more of these tomorrow night.

The first ones here were taken in the Safeway lot again. Given the number of photos I take there, you'd think Safeway was the Eighth Wonder of the World.






I allowed Microsoft Photo Manager to "correct" the color on that last one. Which do you like better, the original colors (tending toward orange) or the ones the software gave me (tending toward purple)?

Karen

Gullywasher!

This is more like it.  We've had significant rain most of the afternoon here in midtown Tucson, real monsoon activity instead of just rain over the mountains.  At least one major city street was briefly closed due to flooding. With any luck, I'll find water actually flowing in a wash once I get off work, and get you a couple of pictures.

Just this past Sunday, Father John Smith pointed out in a sermon that the rain one person prays to avoid (say, the day of a family picnic) may be the same rain someone else (say, a farmer in the drought-starved Southwest) prays to get.  I was reminded of this as I reveled in today's rain, only to learn that a  nearby town had major rain damage.  Someone was even injured when his mobile home collapsed.  I heard this on the radio, but missed the details as to where exactly this was. Needless to say, I didn't want anyone to get hurt, or for a family to lose their home!

Karen

Later:

It was pretty dry at the east end of town by the time I got home, but there was water flowing in Pantano Wash.  Here's the best of the pictures. Usually there's no water in this semi-retired river, except right after rain. As I understand it, water used to flow in some of Tucson's rivers (notably the Sata Cruz) over a century ago. Overgrazing and other man-made changes to the local water table soon put a stop to that.

The next time there's significant weather before dark, I'll try again for some pictures.

KFB

The Monsoon in Color

Here's what the monsoon looks like, according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Now that's more like it. It rained much of yesterday evening in Tucson, and it will rain more today. Finally.  It supposedly rained over an inch in the last day or so, which is roughly 1/12th of the average rainfall for the year.

I don't quite follow NOAA's terse explanation of the color scheme on this satellite photo / map, but I think the most colorful bits are colder and wetter. Tucson is roughly in the gray spot in the southeast quarter of Arizona (that colorful state just east of California).

No pictures from me today, even though the cloudy Catalinas were highly photogenic this morning.  The digital camera is recharging, and I'm up against the final deadlines on all my homework. Plus today is payroll day at work, so I'll be busy here, too.

Karen

Tucson, Rain & Those Hazy Crazy Memories of Summer
Fire on the Mountain - More on the Monsoon
Clouds' Illusions
Monsoon Watch: One Step Back....

National Weather Service - Tucson monsoon page
National Weather Service - Tucson forecast

Momentary Monsoon

This year, the arcane standards of the National Weather Service that determine when the Arizona monsoon starts proved to be less demanding than mine are. As of today, their page about the monsoon says that it started last Thursday, July 8th.  I, on the other hand, was trying to hold out for actual rain in the city of Tucson itself, which is to say, any place I happened to be at the time. Not a few raindrops, but rain.  A gullywasher.  Or, more to the point, a car washer.

Today, I finally got that.  For all of five minutes.  At 3:30 this afternoon near Broadway and Country Club, there was thunder. There was a downpour. There were people staring out the window. There was minor flooding in the street. But by the time I left for the bank ten minutes later, all that was left was a little rain in the street plus a light sprinkle.  Phooey.

Maybe tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a picture taken around dusk tonight, looking east from Park Place shopping mall toward rain on the Rincons.

It's almost 8:30 PM now, and I just heard thunder.

Karen

Tucson, Rain & Those Hazy Crazy Memories of Summer
Fire on the Mountain - More on the Monsoon
National Weather Service - Tucson monsoon page
National Weather Service - Tucson forecast

Monsoon Watch: One Step Back, and Forward Again

When I started out to church this morning, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Now they're building up again over the mountains, mounds of white puffy promise that make the Catalinas and the Rincons look small.  But overhead, the sky is perfectly blue and clear. I'll be very surprised if it rains today.

I liked blue sky
Back in Syracuse, but now
I need rain instead.

Stay tuned.

Karen

Later that same day...

What was I saying about no cloudage overhead?

At 7 PM I heard thunder!  I grabbed the camera and rushed outside, walking to the end of the block and back by way of the alley. A few tiny droplets of rain fell on me, my eyes got all gritty from a brief duststorm, and I just missed getting pictures of lightning about three times.  No gullywasher yet, but it's coming.  The thunder promises.

Up the block, a neighbor I don't know at all stood propped up against his truck, shirt off, camera to his eye, trying for lightning pictures.  I wished him luck with it.  Across the street, a couple with two dogs hugged and watched the sky.

Come on, come on...!

Promise, sunset clouds
You will not slip off at dusk
And leave the earth dry.

But they did.

Karen

Tucson, Rain & Those Hazy Crazy Memories of Summer
Fire on the Mountain - More on the Monsoon
National Weather Service - Tucson monsoon page
National Weather Service - Tucson forecast

Clouds' Illusions

It didn't rain today in Tucson.

Let me qualify that: it probably rained on the edges of Tucson.  There was lightning over the Tucson mountains and the lower end of the Catalinas near the Rincons. There were the vertical streaks on the horizon in two directions that could mean either virga (rain that doesn't reach the ground), or real rain.  But in the city, nothing.  Nothing but clouds.

Still, it's getting closer.  The monsoon is coming.  Had I taken pictures for you a week ago, it would have been all blue sky, with maybe a little fluffy cloud over the northwest or southeast edge of the Tucson valley. Another day or two, maybe another week, and we'll have rain--not the little half-hearted sprinkle that leaves spots on my car, but a gullywasher that turns Tucson Boulevard into a river.

The pictures here (except for the one of my car) were all taken around 5 PM today.  It wasn't even almost sunset, but the sky was fairly dark. It was also windy, which is typical of this weather. But after sunset, we could see that the sky was clearing.  For the second night in a row, the planet Venus was visable.  No stars yet, but Venus.

Everyone in Tucson is waiting for the monsoon.  It's the main topic of conversation.  The guys at vehicle emissions, testing fumes in a 110 degree open concrete building, watch the sky and wait.  People give each other updates at the bank, or when they get home from work. People get on the rooftops, patch them, and give them a fresh layer of white "cool cote," so there won't still be leaks in the ceiling when the rain starts. People look at their filthy cars, and try to decide whether it's worth going to the car wash, only to see the car get dirty again the next time it sprinkles, or else get cleaner in the first big storm.

There's a book called Arizona 101 that we bought when we arrived here in 1986.  "When everyone at the office rushes to the window, you know it's raining," the book said.  That's pretty much true.  Once every couple of years, in the winter, everyone looks out the window at hail or snow. In the summer, if it's really pouring, say about 5 PM on a weekday, people stand around and wait for a break in the storm before dashing to their cars, or else leave a few minutes early to avoid the worst of the flooding.

I took a bunch of pictures today from the edge of the Costco parking lot.  Here are two of them. The green stuff is mesquite and greasewood and palo verde trees and sagebrush, all growing in the Rillito River.  That's right; you're looking at a dry river bed. And yes, all that white stuff is trash. There were also a bunch (covey?) of Gambel's quail, but they wouldn't pose for the camera.

There's one other point I could mention about the Arizona desert before the monsoon hits.  It's hot.  It's over 100 degrees, and getting humid. Between here and Nogales or Naco, between the Mexican border and Sells, people die almost every day this time of year, trying to get from Mexico to Tucson and beyond.  They die of heat or dehydration, or get shot, or die in vehicle accidents in overloaded vans owned by "coyotes"--professional smugglers of illegal immigrants. The latest trend is that these people get abandoned in overloaded vans, or those vans tip over on the freeway, with 30 people inside.  What a waste of life. But people keep doing it, because even a minimum wage job in Tucson means a better life--if they survive long enough to get one. There must be a better way.

Karen




No More Deaths
Tucson, Rain & Those Hazy Crazy Memories of Summer
Fire on the Mountain - More on the Monsoon
National Weather Service - Tucson monsoon page
National Weather Service - Tucson forecast

Fire on the Mountain - More on the Monsoon

Have you ever noticed that the longer you live somewhere, the fewer pictures you take of it? John and I have been in Tucson since 1986, and the vast majority of our pictures of the place were taken from 1986-1990. These days, most of our pictures are taken by digital camera, someplace else.

I went looking for more pictures of dramatic weather in Tucson, but the notebooks are in the bedroom and John's asleep. I sneaked in (snuck?) and got a couple of neat pictures, though, to illustrate further explanations about the Tucson monsoon and the season that immediately precedes the summer monsoon: fire season.

The two pictures here are of a particularly bad fire on Mount Lemmon, circa 1988-1990. Mount Lemmon is part of the Catalina Mountains, which form the northern boundary of Tucson. If you think this fire is dramatic, let me tell you: the one in June and July, 2003 was much worse. It wasn't as visible from the city, but it did much more damage on the mountain, and ruined Tucson's air quality for weeks.

Now it's fire season again, and there are restrictions on campfires and smoking in National Forest lands all over Arizona. Most of the worst fires in recent years, including the one that destroyed most of Summerhaven on Mount Lemmon, were caused by humans. At the moment, though, the fires around the state mostly seem to be caused by lightning--lightning, but no rain. Remember, it's a dry heat.

It's been clouding up, though, and I found more evidence of minimal overnight rain on my windshield this morning. So now we've got both heat (high 90s to low 100s) and humidity--not at Houston levels, but more than the 11% humidity we get in April and May.

There's a formula the weather people use to tell us whether the monsoon has arrived, involving so many days of a certain dewpoint level, or something like that. We don't really need to know the details. It's pretty clear to everyone in Tucson that the monsoon has not yet arrived. And I've lost track of whether it's supposed to be El Niño or La Niña or neither this time around. I never could keep those straight, anyway.

In a previous entry I mentioned arroyos, those dry washes that channel muddy, fast-moving water during and immediately after a big rain. Here's one of them, next to our old house on Grannen Road. I used to call it 'Cassional Creek. The dog who's checking it out is either a neighbor dog, Cheyenne, or Kirby, who belonged to John's business partner, Walt.

To finish things off for now, here's a rainbow over the desert, just off Grannen Road.

I'll save the pictures of Tucson's only recorded White Christmas for another time.

Karen


National Weather Service - Tucson Monsoon page

Arizona, Rain and Those Hazy-Crazy Memories of Summer

Flash flood at Old Tucson, circa 1987. Photo by KFB.

Here’s my response to another weekend assignment from John M Scalzi in By The Way....  He wants "the perfect summer song."  I'll give you two of them that work for me personally--and I can pretty much guarantee they won't be anyone else's picks.

Probably nobody under the age of 40 even remembers Nat "King" Cole's Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer.  I'm 47, and I remember it fondly.  I distinctly recall hearing it on WSYR radio in my mom's Rambler as we drove past the pharmacy near the bottom of High Bridge Road in Dewitt, NY, on our way to a vacation on Lake Ontario.  WSYR was the Syracuse station for my parents' generation, and they controlled the radio on family vacations.  I didn't really start listening to the Top 40 rock stations (WNDR and WOLF) until the early 1970s.

My other specific memory of Nat "King" Cole's 1963 summer hit is from years later.  I was at the home of  some friend of my mom's, hanging out with other kids I didn't know well.  The parents were off in another room or out to dinner or something.  I came across a 45 of Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer, and played it at least once.  My memory is that I did so while reading the original hardback edition of The Beatles' Illustrated Lyrics, a book that belonged to my mom's friend (Anita? Jean? Lillian? I don't remember which). 

It wasn't the first time I'd looked at that book while at that particular house.  The first time I saw it, I had Peggy Lee's Siamese Cat Song stuck in my head because of the lady's two (you guessed it) Siamese cats.  I'm sure I learned the song from an episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. 

Anyway, the second or third time I spent an hour or more looking over The Beatles' Illustrated Lyrics, the woman loaned it to me to take home.  I still have it, that very copy, along with a copy of The Little Prince that was also originally loaned to me by a friend of my mom's.  Sorry about that.  I would have returned them 35 years ago given the opportunity.  I suspect that at some point, the books' original owners decided to let me keep them.

Now that I've confessed to my illicit possession of that Beatles book, I should name one of their songs as an alternate summer song in case only rock and roll counts.  All right: Rain.  No, it doesn't mention summer, but it's perfectly appropriate for summer in Tucson, where there are no beaches and no sane person dives with the top down in July or August.  A hot wind when it's 100 degrees or higher is not refreshing. Rain, though, can be very refreshing in such circumstances.

"Wait a minute," you may be saying. "Tucson?  Rain?  Isn't Tucson in the desert, a place reputed to have 360 sunny days a year?"

That's right.  But twice a year, it starts to rain for a month or two, not every day, but enough to get almost all of our 11 inches a year into two brief periods.  Each season is called a monsoon, after similar weather patterns on the other side of the world.  One is called the "male" monsoon, and the other the "female" one--at least, they used to be. The winter rainy season is no big deal, just a bit of rain now and then, with a little hail or snow mixed in once every couple of years.  It's in summer that we get the real monsoon.  It starts in June or July, and it's a big show: dramatic thunderstorms, lightning, pouring rain, and flooded roads.  Tucson Boulevard turns into a river.  People drive into washes (small river beds, also called arroyos, that are dry except during major storms) and get stuck or float away.  When someone unwisely drives into a dip in the road and has to be rescued, the city bills them for the cost.  It's called the "Stupid Motorist Law."

The coolest thing about the summer monsoon is that it's like the weather in the song Camelot. It usually only rains between four and six PM, or at night.  Late in the afternoon, I hear the rain pounding on the roof, and rush to the window to admire the downpour.  By the time my work day finishes, it's all over, and I can drive home. The temperature has just dropped at least 20 degrees.

Anyway, here it is late June, and everyone in Tucson is waiting for the monsoon to start.  So far we've only had a few drops when we weren't looking, just enough to make the cars filthy. When the rain comes, we'll run and hide our heads, only to watch the show from the safety of our homes and offices.

What's that, John?  You also want a song for the last day of summer?  Okay, with cooler weather only a month away--sometime in October--it will finally be time to listen to the Beach Boys, Fun Fun Fun.

Have a nice summer. 

Karen

fun facts about the Tucson monsoon - NWS