The Rains Came Down...

So I live in the desert. As you can imagine, rain is a big deal here. Who am I kidding? Clouds are a big deal here!!! Any relief from the blistering sun is a welcome sight. That’s why monsoon season is one of my favorite AZ treats. I know what you’re thinking, "Monsoons in Arizona? Isn’t that against everything a desert stands for?" Let me just clarify, the so called “monsoon season” for us is a few inches of rain in about 6 weeks. Not the torrential downpour you might conjure up when you hear the word monsoon, but it’s a monsoon to us!

As I mentioned, we Phoenicians love rain, but last night we got more than we bargained for--we had the CRAZIEST storm I have ever seen. All of the sudden, completely out of no where, a hurricane roles into Phoenix! I’m not joking. It was raining cats and dogs, the wind was blowing out of control, and the windows were shaking. It literally felt like we were in a hurricane. I learned this morning that we had winds that reached 100 miles per hour. We also got 1 inch of rain in 15 minutes. Okay, we only get like 2 inches of rain a year—we just got half of that in 15 minutes! Crazy! We ended up with almost 6 inches in just a few hours.

This morning on my way to work about half of the trees on my route had been either snapped in half or completely toppled over. For a city that only has 10 trees, that’s a big deal. It is quite the site around here. Anyway, we made it out alive, but here a few pictures of the storm and its aftermath.