Welcome to My Monsoon

While I'm busy reading one book and editing another, let me just post some more pictures to fill out tonight's very late entry. The first four pictures are from Thursday evening, the fifth from Saturday shortly before sunset.

Windblown palms at sunset

When I left work on Thursday it was just before sunset, the sky was purple-pink, the wind was gale-strength, and it was just starting to rain a tiny bit.

Street sign and dust in the wind

By the time I got to Craycroft and 22nd, the wind was having a noticeable effect on my car, and the street sign at the light was flapping wildly in the wind. I opend the car window to take this picture. The spots are dust, from the dust storm the preceded the heavy rain.

More palms, blowing at dusk as the rain begins in earnest

By the time I reached 29th and Craycroft, we were having serious rain.

And this was today, shortly before sunset. The rain was so heavy that I was reluctant to venture out of the covered entryway. When I finally did so, I was soaked in seconds.

Bed now, I think. I'm on page 570 of Potter, and page 523 of Heirs. I added some description to this chapter, and had to double back to Chapter to fix a continuity glitch. This book is not going to be any shorter when I'm done - but it will be better.

Karen

No Dust Devils, Darn It!

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap a picture of wind. Naturally, it's difficult to get a picture of the wind itself, being that air is generally transparent. however, it's easier to get a picture of how the wind is affecting other things: hair, flags, kites, so on and so forth.

I have no blowing hair pictures for you, no kites, and I choose not to go with flags. I actually did take a flag picture tonight, just as the wind dropped; but really, even though it was a bit windy after work there were no good photographic opportunities. So this is a survey of what's currently on my hard drive, cross-checked against past blog entries to avoid reruns. You won't be seeing the windblown Niagara Falls icicles again tonight unless you Google for them. Nothing I'm posting is less than 10 months old, nor more than 20 months old.

This first shot is pretty much a typical parking lot monsoon storm picture. Check out the palm trees in the middle; they'll tell you the wind's direction that afternoon.

And this one, obviously, is after a storm. It was wind, and not so much the rain, that brought down these palm branches and bits of bark.


This is from my favorite sequence of monsoon pictures ever, and the only halfway decent one in the series that I haven't posted at least once before. Check out the whitewater rapids in the street! St. Michael's, August, 2005.

This wash next to Fuddrucker's on Speedway is full of water, which is fairly unusual in itself. But what makes it interesting is the way the wind is blowing ripples on its surface.

And this is as close as I found to the traditional evidence of wind in Arizona: a dust devil. A dust devil is basically a mini whirlwind of dust or dirt, spiraling into the air. They turn up fairly often on the freeway between Tucson and Phoenix, but not usually close enough to be easily photographed. Here instead is a more generalized dust storm, covering a huge part of the north side of Tucson. June, 2006.

Best I can do for tonight. Tomorrow: my Round Robin Photo Challenges 2nd Anniversary entry! And no, I haven't a clue yet what I'll be posting for it. More fun for me that way!

Karen