Its about 104 degrees… at 9:00 pm… the eastern sky is dark,
black… Earlier, the National Weather Service was putting out warnings about
thunder storms, high winds, lightning strikes… the warnings you hear on the
radio proceeded by unworldly warning bleats… with warnings following about
lightning and flash floods and staying indoors it sturdy buildings… a few hours
ago those warnings were for far eastern Clark County… Clark County includes Las
Vegas as well as Henderson where I live, and runs east to the Colorado River… and the south eastern shore of Lake Meade…
It appears that the monsoon has arrived…
Here in the Mojave (Mohave) and Sonora desert the monsoon
has several meanings…
On one level it is the moisture, flowing in from the south,
which with daytime heating rises, and so forms clouds, which late in the day
turn into thunder storms… for 30 minutes
or so… then subsides…
Here it is also the specific remains of Pacific Ocean
tropical storms, channeled north via the Gulf of California, rising when
hitting the mountains, to some extent the southern reach of the Rocky Mountains…
but in any event the plateaus of Utah… and as they rise, forming clouds, and
thunder heads and thunder showers… resulting in nasty localize flash flooding…
So now, at 9:00 pm,
in Henderson, at ground level, it is still dry, low humidity… but above the weather gods
are playing… Generally the nasty weather
should stay to the east, but I have spotted a couple of lightning flashes…
Welcome to the desert…
