Clouds built east of us this morning over the City of Kingman and the Hualapai Mountains, radar showing rain there by mid-afternoon. At 4:00PM it was 118 degrees here, Humidity 9%, Dew Point (the "biggy") 44 degrees, the clouds begining to envelop our area 35 miles west of Kingman. Phoenix got it's first dust storm, those being probably the most dislikable part of the Summer Desert Monsoon. Here's a good pic of one enveloping Phoenix a couple of seasons ago: The rain is something else. An airline passenger taking off from Las Vegas took this incredible shot of a very heavy confined cloudburst coming down from heavy overcast, the downpour being perhaps 2 miles wide. Note sun shining beyond the cloudcover, absolute clarity of air present with no rainfall. It's a typical Monsoon rain pattern, the downpour is rarely stationary, though, and may slowly move for miles before petering out. I took a can of soda out of the fridge, the can being at 40 degrees, as proclaimed by the read-out on the door, and it immediately began to "sweat", indicating our in-house Dew Point was considerably above 40, possibly 50 to 60, due to the swam cooler's adding of water to the air it was delivering. Getting uncomfortable, still it was taking the 118-degree air down to 80 degrees, that drop feeling cool, but not pleasantly so. This will continue, with respites of a few days at a time where the humidity will drop, until September. But when the downpour happens, and we hope for it, the air temperature sometimes drops into the 70s! Frank
Update. Did not expect it quite so soon. Very early this morning, 3:45 AM, I was awakened by thunder, went to relieve my bladder, returned to my wife awake, she said "It's raining!" Of course, she heard it tinkling on the metal box of our cooler outside the bedroom. A few more boomers, and even I heard it then: raining hard on the roof! Yeah, I know, so what, right? Rain here is a rare event, so much so that we relish it. Gusty wind of course blew some leaves into our little pool, but it also cooled the pool down, it having been very warm. This morning cleanup, then a wonderful Brunch at AVI Resort, bogo: buy one get one! Frank