They typically begin in July, with the rain, high winds, and lightning, a tropical monster that is comparable to the damaging weather the Philippine Islands get each year. Floods, debris, lightning strikes, scary thunder....that's the normal for us in the summer. Our city has been slowly getting us better prepared for the high volumes of water rushing downhill, and I enjoy standing near the floodgates to watch the white water rapids go by.
Last summer was our first real good monsoon in many many years.
We had massive flooding, damage, and even death.
The city did a little work with concrete and earth movers, making the flood control a bit better.
When the flood waters hit us this summer, it was much more controlled. Our street is located at the bottom of the hill, so by the time the rain has run down the mountainside and thru all the washes, it's going at least 40 mph. It's carrying rocks, trees, and debris, and it's aggressive. We're the drain right before the lakeshore.
With the new culvert work, new concrete, we were pleasantly surprised:
No trees, no cars, nothing terrible rushing by. Just water, and it was only about a foot deep. I commended the City Manager with the work that had been done in the past year, I wanted him to know that we'd noticed a big difference.
Oh, but the lighting...
Those two photos were from our back yard. That top one I refer to as the "hand of God" photo. It was stunning to see in person.
This photo was from up the hill, at a church parking lot. I was looking north toward the Havasu Heights area when I snapped it.
A few days later we were blessed with another good lightning display, and I ran outside with my camera.
This was over our house, at about midnight. Crazy electrical storm.
A week later, another good storm rolled in. I took this over my neighbor's house:
I guess you could say I'm glad the big storms have returned to our area. No more disappointing monsoon seasons!!
