Monday, July 31, 2006

Wet Desert

No, not when someone leaves his or her cake out in the rain. I mean what three or four days of rain means in the southwest. It turns something that looks normally like this:

Into something that looks like this:

To provide even more perspective, the bottom photo was taken after the water level had dropped about four feet, perhaps more. One of the photos Deb took shows a woman standing at the opposite bank. You can see the striations of the water level behind her, the highest being over her head. I'm assuming she's at least five feet tall, so there's your observational science in a nutshell. The news had photos of people kayaking and rafting in this gigantic mudpuddle with rapids. Why people in the desert even have water craft is beyond me.

More rain expected over the next two days at least. We've already had double last year's rainfall amount in the past week. Roads are closed, some roads are gone. For those who may remember our trip up Mt. Lemmon, the entire road is closed from top to bottom. I can say with certainty that I'm glad we weren't on Mt. Lemmon when the road started to flood. It's exhilirating when it's dry, but I'd rather not be stranded up there. I definitely would not be going "whee!" as several feet of water sent me hurtling 9,000 feet down. No matter how nice the view may be on the way.

2 comments:

scooter's thoughts said...

Most of the people in the desert are from east, I would guess, maybe that's why they have watercraft... Or, they are all old boy and girl scouts, always prepared. Who knows, but that would be a picturesque ride down the mountain none the less.

Oliviah said...

Wow, how amazing.