A version of this article was first posted in July 2019. Here is repost again in preparation for Arizona's monsoon season and (More 2020 Monsoon Details here)
Phoenicians look forward to monsoon with the eagerness of NASCAR-goers awaiting a car crash. There’s beauty in the destructive power of the unpredictable storms in this season. Two of my brothers who now live out of state plan visits during the annual monsoon season to satisfy a nostalgic craving for the theatrics of mile-high walls of dust, fierce lightning, and flash flooding, along with the thrill of waiting to see how much force nature will unleash. Just last night, the first of these cracked open the skies with an impressive lightning show, rain, and microbursts of wind. I had dinner with a friend and stopped for a second leaving the restaurant to take in the gorgeous yet ominous sunset with a storm looming in the distance, and then got in my car and thought nothing of it. I made it home before even the air stirred. As soon as I was home, I got a message from my friend whose house apparently was in the path of a microburst while we were at dinner. The message said, “OMG, the pool! It’s brown and there’s half a tree in it!”.
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