Rounds 4 And 5

Yet more rain tonight, this time two storms in the same evening. The first blew through like a hurricane, wind strong enough to bow the windows in the house, and sideways rain. The second we caught a glancing blow with a lot less wind (the first one nearly uprooted the 2nd biggest tree in the yard), and a little more rain, about a third of an inch in total. We're nearing two inches of rain since the beginning of this week and they're forcecasting rain for tomorrow and Sunday still.

Here is a good article on the monster monsoon storm that rolled through Phoenix last night (giving us another third of an inch, it built up - thankfully - after it passed through here). This one dumped two inches of rain, up to 100mph winds and closed the airport for an hour, causing millions of dollars in damage to planes, hangers, and parking garages there. Also 4000 lightning strikes recorded from cloud to ground, the most in a monsoon since 1996. Phoenix is getting close to doubling it's annual rainfall at this point, pretty amazing.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/08/29/20080829stormfollo0830.html

Round Three Of The Rain

More rain tonight, about a third of an inch so far, most amazing lightning I've ever seen, constant flashing. I'll update these totals below later if I have a chance, the storm is moving slowing towards downtown. We're now just shy of two inches for the month and they're forecasting more rain through Sunday.

More Rain

This morning the non stop thunder woke me up around 4. A huge thunderstorm loomed off to the north until dawn broke, and it finally sagged south over us around 6. We ended up getting over a half an inch of rain in about twenty minutes, and my rain barrels are now almost completely full between this storm and the one a few days ago. The high today was only 91 thanks to the early morning rain.

Finally, Decent Rain

The valley got some widespread, soaking rain last night, and finally we were included. We managed about four tenths of an inch, which is better than what we have been getting. At about 1 this morning while it was raining our tempature got down below 70 probably for the first time since May.

At any rate, here are the totals, for those that are interested. This rainfall should put downtown Phoenix at about two inches above average, which is saying a lot considering they only average about seven a year.

Euc And Juju

Here are a quick couple of pictures taken late this afternoon of the eucalyptus and jujube trees. The old of the jujubes has about 15 maturing fruit on it. One of the pictures below showcases some of the larger ones, and another limb with three in various stages of development.

The Randomness Of It All

For starters, here is a picture of an orchid tree I planted off the back porch this past week. I love the shape of the leaves on it, and am hoping it survives until next spring when it may or may not have some pink blooms on it (too young to bloom?).

This morning I saw this out the front porch when I got the paper.

And finally, while out garage sale shopping this past weekend, Emily took this picture for me as I was at one point joking that I'd turn a toilet into a planter in our backyard, to match our bathtub that's out there already. On second thought, maybe I won't do that.

Missed Again

An article on the airport closing due to tonight's rain.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/08/07/20080807abrk-weather0707.html

Rainfall totals, we're in the gray county in the lower right.

Another Miss

Here's a shot of the planter, finally rebuilt out in the new deck extension. It's not exactly a perfect rectangle like it used to be, but I did what I could with the wood I had left from the original.

My older jujube tree is showing promise, with humidity and deep watering, it's setting fruit on many of the branches. We'll see whether it holds them to maturity, when the monsoon is gone next month and the temps start to go up again.

Last night we missed out on the rain... again. Here you can see it coming in from three directions, forming a horseshoe around the heat island that is the Phoenix metro area.

By about 10 pm last night, it closed in completely around us. Lightning in four directions, but overhead I could see stars and scattered clouds. We had lots of wind, but no rain to speak of. Downtown had close to half an inch, and up at Saguaro Lake they had over two inches. We weren't the only ones to miss out, however, the west valley also didn't see anything.