Storm Day #2

Happy Wednesday! Well it had actually rained here at Craggy Wash, it started with a very light rain at about 9:30 last night and has rained most of the night. At around 3 o’clock there was thunder and a hard downpour so Mother Nature is making up for some of the rain shortages from the summer monsoon season. It is about 14 or 60 degrees this morning and very close to our high for the day, this storm has formed further north so it is bringing with it some cooler temperatures. The normal temperature in November are mid seventies not the mid eighties that we have seen for the last little while, this has been a broad storm that has moved through, and will most likely bring snow to the higher elevations, areas like Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, as temperatures drop they could get up to six inches of snow.

We are presently in a flash flood warning, which while not easily understood by most of the folks back in Ontario, is a real true threat here, another weather app shows that we have received 1.4 cm or .5 inches of rain. We use a couple of different weather apps on our phones, after our first adventures during the summer of 2017 and being caught up in a couple of very violent storms in Wisconsin, I purchased a weather app that gives us warnings of severe weather. While a lot of the warnings are common, such as freeze warnings in the fall, when you live full time in your coach some of these warnings become very important. We were warned of multiple storms in Mississippi, as we came back from Arizona in the spring of 2018, in fact a tornado touched down within a few miles of us, and as a tornado went through central Florida about a year ago we were able to track the path as it approached the RV Resort. Unlike the storm desks that most of the TV stations set up there is no hype, the app just gives us the warnings and then we can open and track and react as we feel necessary, it has become a valuable tool as we plan our trips in the spring and fall to help avoid too much cold 🥶 weather.

I’m kind of disappointed that the rain came overnight as I find it amazing how the water escapes, in the desert, a nice slow rain, and a lot of it gets absorbed into the ground, but the downpours just run off and form little streams that join to form rushing torrents that form the washes that are located all over the desert. In fact the area we are boondocking in right now is a huge wash, and with enough rain it could become one of those rushing wash’s. It is always on my mind as we park on BLM land, and has always amazed me as we drive some of the roads, they have dips in the roads that could flood for a few hours with enough heavy rain, you see on the news where someone’s car is swept off the road, that is what happens, the water comes up so fast people are just caught off guard. So just like in Ontario where we have warning signs for blowing snow in areas, here they have signs about blowing dust and not to drive into water, hell they even put up signs to show you in feet how deep the water is in places…just saying

Day 778