Dust Storm::2011

This is my 4th summer spent here in the Valley of the Sun, as it's called. I am still shocked that humans can survive it. Every year I go through the same thing. 'Why would anyone live here???' 'How can summer last this long???' 'How is it possible for it to be this hot???' 'How much higher could our electric bill go???' (I'm real whiny when I say these things too) I find this weather almost unbearable. It is dry, and HOT...although our humidity is up now that monsoon season is here. I personally welcome the humidity because it is miserable no matter what, and I have a small OCD issue with "dry, hot" things touching my skin (it's a story for another day).
Anyway, I pray and hope and watch the skies for rain. There really is a monsoon season here, but when they say isolated thunderstorms, they really mean isolated. Most of the time you can see the storm but someone else is experiencing its wrath.

During one of my first summers here I was in the car driving towards a friends house. I looked to my right across the flat desert and I could see this HUGE cloud, real low to the ground. Where I was driving it was perfectly sunny. I was like, "what in the world is that???" It looked like a storm cloud in the distance, but it was brown. Like dirt brown. As I got closer to my destination, I drove right into it. A massive cloud of dust. Inside the cloud it looked like a rain storm (except it was brownish instead of grey). It was windy, it was hard to see, I even had my wipers going, but it was dry! That was my first experience with a dust storm. Crazy, desert weather.

So yesterday evening we were in the pool. I was watching the thunderheads build and just hoping we would get a rainstorm. It was close, but I could see the wind was blowing it to the west of us. Bummer. We got out, I put Easton to bed and the rest of us were watching a movie. I looked out the window (now dark outside) and I could hardly see our neighbor's street light. YES! Rain!!!! I should have known better because I hadn't heard any rain. In fact, I had been sitting there wondering why our house smelled like dust (I hate the smell of dust). I went out back and turned on our spot light and low and behold I was standing in the middle of swirling dirt. It was just blowing past the light almost like a light mist. It was hard to breathe, hard to see, and I had to walk around the side of the house and lock up the chickens. UGH. Imagine a rain storm lacking all moisture. Hot, dry and yet hard to see through. It is the weirdest thing. And let me tell you....it made the biggest mess!!!!! They said on the news it was one of the biggest dust storms Phoenix has ever seen. Picked up by over 50mph winds, it was over a mile high and over 50 miles wide. Crazy!!! Kinda glad I looked up and got to witness it! Dust Storm 2011.

Not my picture, but this is what it looked like if you saw it coming!

That's all dirt...not an ounce of moisture in that there cloud.

This table is actually under our covered patio

this is under our covered patio, too, up against the house

the top step of our pool

looks like it might have sprinkled (rain) a little, but not enough!!!