We were sitting there, preparing for the big storm, the winds were picking up and when I looked into the skies and say a crazy brownish-orange ting to the clouds. I thought to myself, that couldn't be a dust storm could it? The ground is wet, so where would it come from?
Notice Pass Mountain has virtually disappeared in the dust cloud? The hue is hard to tell here, but it was a dusty brownish gray. Definitely different than a normal cloud.
Then, the rain started falling and it actually started raining mud!
In minutes, the trailer and truck were coated in wet dust.
Then, as the winds picked up, the "beep beep beep" of the Emergency Broadcasting System came on the radio. I had never heard anything other than the normal "test" before. They announced that a tornado warning had been issued for Maricopa County. That was it, we sealed up the trailer and drove to Mesa to stay in a hotel for the night. We weren't messing with 70 mph winds, 3-5 inches of rain, AND a possible tornado!
Hard to tell in this image from the hotel room window at 9pm, but the rain is falling as hard as I've ever seen it. I'm guessing at least 2 inches fell in the 15 hardest minutes.
The news said 3.34" fell yesterday today and 5.78 for the week, surpassing the entire total of 2009!
It was still raining in the morning when we woke up.
Many roads and washes were flooded. They have closed many routes. We drove by parking lots that were lakes. But, I am amazed how this porous soil has been able to drain the water so quickly. In fact, many washes had obvious signs of flooding (debris piled up and washed onto the roads), but were completely dry by late morning.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment