My most vivid memory of Arizona before my husband and I came to live here was a few seconds during one of my family's road trips. We were between the car and the restaurant and in the distance, over the mountains, beyond the palo verdes and creosote, a black cloud rumbled with sudden flashes of white electricity. At the time, I knew with the firmness only a child can feel that California was the only place to be. The dry electricity falling out of the sky to zap innocent girls was much more sinister to me than the natural, expected occasional realignments of the Earth that were earthquakes.
I object to the use of the term "monsoon," which I became familiar with in the context of the truly incessant deluges that happen yearly in Bangladesh and Southeast Asia. Nothing that evaporates in the breaking dawn should really be compared to what happens there, even when there are mudslides and the washes fill up and drag debris and silly people's cars away to the sea. "Rainy season" would be more accurate than "monsoon," and perhaps we could go as far as "moister than usual season," for what's happening now, or the desert climatologists could advocate better for whatever technical term they've developed.
Because the Sonoran Desert at its wettest -- I'm guessing -- won't even approach a typical day in coastal Oregon (the location of my biggest fans). (If you're a fan, tell me where you're located!)
Location: Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sharon! Wisconsin is now awesome in my personal US map.
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