Chirp, I'm Way Up Here

This little lady was so far away that the photo is heavily cropped.  Don't let that morning blue sky fool you...  

I was  only a mile from home when a wicked monsoon storm struck.  As I arrived at the corner, I was completely blinded - I couldn't even the see the stoplights.  After I turned, I drove about 5 mph and wove back and forth to avoid  huge limbs in the road.  I seriously feared the wind would flip my car.  

I realized the power was out when the garage door wouldn't open. I knew that meant mom's would be out, too,  causing her oxygen concentrator to fail.  I called her from my car trying to give her directions... a fruitless exercise.  Helpless, I called the paramedics who got her squared away.  

In my house, four of my nine windows were leaking like sieves.  At least it distracted me from the deafening fury outside. I've driven through blizzards and dust storms, even really hard rain; however, this storm was in a league of it's own.  It was the first time in the 3785 days I've lived in Arizona that I wish I didn't!

I have an app which gives me storm/lightening warnings.  These were some I received:
3:14 pm - Lighting detected 4.5 miles away (from my house)
3:26 pm - Lightening detected 1.5 miles away
3:38 pm - Lightening detected 0.5 miles away
3:51 pm - Lightening detected 0.0 miles away (Holy crap!  Hide!)

My power was out only 2 hours.   We got about an inch of rain in the <30 minute deluge during which the temperature dropped from 99°/32° to 71°/21°.

This month, Tucson  officially received 6.80 in of rain, the wettest July on record. It's also been the wettest monsoon to date going back to the late 1800's.  (The monsoon technically ends on 30 September.) It's helped the drought immensely.  Thirty-four percent of Arizona is now drought FREE, a 12% improvement from just last week.