Monsoon season: when the rain takes over the desert

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Photo by Iphoneography

Insane amounts of rain in just a couple of months, is something I always believed to be a tropical phenomenon, occurring only in the forests of Asia and the Pacific. Well, I was wrong. In July and August even the Arizonan desert is enjoying this 'feast of rain': the Monsoon.

After the ridiculously hot month of June (46 degrees Celsius, 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and months of drought, all living beings needed some slack. Plants, animals and people need the yearly Monsoon to be able to live here. Because Monsoon means one thing: rain.

Rain finally gives this area cooler air, open doors and windows in the evening, lush green trees and purple flowers everywhere. The rain is always sudden, short and intense, accompanied by loud thunder and intense lightning. It creates beautiful sunsets and gorgeous clouds. Photographers no doubt flock to Tucson these days for the best sky's of the country. Storm chasers as well must feel in paradise.

The rain also causes the very unique 'smokey' smell of the Mesquite trees, that will forever remind me of Tucson (I was gonna say 'of home' but yeah, that is cheesy).

And it also creates something quite rare in this area: rivers.

These rivers, however, are not rivers to paddle board or kayak on, and they do not honor the concept of riverbanks. No, these sudden masses of water especially like streets and hiking trails. This summer alone more than 50 hikers had to be rescued due to flash floods and entire neighborhoods lost power or just got inaccessible. Our front yard became a river, including drowned cacti, and our pool flooded and turned green. I know, i know, these are first world problems, but that happens to be my world now. I didn't even mention mosquitoes, tarantulas, insane thunder in the middle of the night and (worse of all) frogs, did I? Well, those suck too.

Driving, though an adventure, really is a nightmare during these storms (for some reason drainage is lacking here), with flooded streets, sudden potholes, falling trees and zero visibility. You don't see a thing when you happen to be in the middle of a so-called 'microburst'. Luckily for us all, the rain doesn't last all day like in Europe. Waiting it out is actually an option here.

Beautiful and horrifying, the Monsoon is needed in the desert. It gives the plants here their yearly drink and cools the air down to reasonable temperatures. It is most of all a very magical phenomenon to watch. You just have to see for yourself (video by Sean Parker Photography) :

Beautiful as it may be, it does get more extreme each year. This July was the wettest and most intense month ever recorded in Tucson, which means more flash flooding, deaths by lightning and more people needing rescue from trails.

So if Global Warming doesn't exist, I am going to be the next President of the United States.