PICS Massive 70 mile wide wall of dirt today Monsoon has arrived in AZ

dewey

Songster
9 Years
Nov 9, 2010
2,454
25
171
north of eternity
Added a couple of more AP pics of yesterday's dust storm.
eff76h.jpg


21kgq5c.jpg


v8o5k9.jpg


And just for contrast to the wall of dirt pics above, here's a stock pic of an example of the walls of WATER that roll through during our monsoon cloud bursts...
21kdxqg.jpg


Unfortunately there's almost 20,000+ folks out of power from the first big valleywide monsoon storm (105+ degrees today and thankfully it wasn't 115+), with damage to property and some homes across the entire valley from the monsoon storm this afternoon and still tonight. This is my 48th yearly monsoon season and have seen about everything to see related to it.

Earlier today we were without power company power for several hours but we fired up the gas generators, so at least we (3 family households with 3 members with health issues & 1 family business) had cooling. Many are not so fortunate tonight which is the not so beautiful side of monsoon, although most of us here love the beautiful side of monsoon.

Without power my rabbits didn't have their evap or fans to put less of a drain of the generators, but they still had their misters that kept them cool. Some friends and family had some damage and/or have a very long night/day ahead of them waiting for power to be restored. Family without power and with medical needs have been put up in hotels or with other friends. Hoping everyone has power asap and that everyone's family members and animals are doing ok.

Photo was a random anon photo from the storm (probably a tv news pic...and there's some amazing pics that haven't uploaded yet. Family were perched high taking pics but were overcome by the storm).

eta...all is calm here now just a layer of dirt/mud to clean off stuff tomorrow...most of the thunder's over and my indoor dog has stopped barking and kitty's come out of hiding and sitting on my lap, licking my face, lol. The chickens were pretty much unfussed through it all as their pen was temp wrapped with tarps until the dirt passed and the rain started, but we're all still trying to get the grit out of our eyes and mouths...the sand/dust gets everywhere!
 
Last edited:
I think it heated up rather early this year, even here on the east coast. I remember Monsoons during late July/Early August. Most of the start over the Cortez Sea and a sucked in or they come rolling out of the Supers. Where I used to work in Mesa, I had a clear view of the Superstition Mountain. People at the other pools in our organization would call me to check the weather report, lol. What they really wanted to know was "is it going to rain, what time, and are we going to be able to shut down" and basicly go party because most of the staff were college students.

I used to love to ride out towards the Salt and sit out there and watch the storms do their things.

Stay safe! Enjoy Mother Nature.
 
Thanks so much.
hugs.gif


My family is all ok and my kids and grand babies all got to safe places before the worst wall hit...as soon as the power went out we fired up a centrally located generator so that there was a cool place to relocate everyone to right away until the other generators cooled down the other households.

There's a lot of folks that are new to AZ or not used to monsoon or ill or elderly that haven't family to help them.
fl.gif


We have gas enough to keep the generators going for weeks if ever needed but there's nothing needed like that with a monsoon so simple as this storm...we mostly keep things on hand to make sure there's power for those in the family with medical needs.

Monsoon started July 3rd, the third day in a row with a dew point over 55 degrees (the true standard rule for monsoon, lol). It started with a bang this year, for sure.

Friends in other parts of the valley rode it out literally in their pools in relative comfort after the worst dust passed.

Thanks again!
 
It's still a MAJOR mess in my backyard and we didn't much rain out of it... just enough to make it real ugly.

I still feel like I have dust in my sinus... we should never have opened the door.
 
I hear you on that. Each time the door was opened it blew in what seems like 10 lbs of dirt, lol. We got some decent rain here but not enough to wash everything off. Some of my family looked like they'd literally been coated in flour when they came in. My white rabbits will look chocolate tomorrow.
 
Wow what an Awe inspiring picture. I am in San Diego County in the high desert and we can see those clouds over Arizona. We get the back edge at my house because we are near the east side of the Baja peninsula. My place is in the last town within San Diego county. Which is a teeny corner of the Sonoran Desert. I got rained on enough to wash the windshield on my way down from the mountain.

I had stopped at the Casino for a break in the 60 mile trip and spoke to a couple who were on their motorcycle with out of state plates. I asked them where they were headed. They said Arkansas. It was around 90 degrees and I said.... your going to get wet. You are heading right into a monsoon. They looked at me like I was nuts. I said See those clouds those are over Arizona.... And it looks like the Monsoon has started, or is building. That was 12 noon ish on the fifth.

I used to live in Las Vegas and know those dust storms pretty amazing stuff. We used to wet towls and lay them on the floor up against the door to keep the talc from coming under and making sand dunes on the floor of the kitchen. School would be let out because we could hear the sand tick tick ticking as it fell on the paper at our desks.

I am glad everyone is ok.
 
Yuma, wow...bet you still get some "good" old fashioned dust storms there. We don't get them anything like we used to here years ago with all the structural wind blocks around, even in the outskirts. Have you had storms there yet?
 
Yes, we definitely get some dust storms here they gets really bad around August, tonight it was real windy, some lighting and thunder but no rain yet. I'm sure its coming soon.
hide.gif
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom