Last year, I can't even remember seeing rain all the time we were here. This year will certainly be memorable, for both the rain and the cooler temperatures. Although most days so far this year the temperatures has been higher than our hometown of Niagara Falls, Canada, it has often felt quite chilly. I've been wearing jeans, whereas I rarely wore them last year.
This past Thursday, Phoenix almost managed to break a record, as seen by this tweet:
So what did this mean for us? Well, first I'll say I'm thankful we weren't living further north in Arizona. Only a one and a half hour drive north we would have been amongst people shovelling more than a foot of snow. Wouldn't that have given our friends back home a good laugh!
For us it was just relatively cold, wet, and dreary. I didn't venture too far for a couple of days. On Thursday our homeowner drove in the rain but soon came back as she said there was flooding over many roads and the driving could be dangerous.
I'll give you a sample of what it looked like, even staying home.
This is taken at the front of the house, looking out across the street. I've never seen water covering the road here before, and it was our third time at this home.
This second photo is if you turned around, looking down along the side of the house towards the back yard. I can tell you, this water was running fast!
This metal grid is hinged to allow it to swing open if the force of the water warrants it. This assures that debris does not build up and block the water route. I didn't see them lift, but apparently they have had summer storms here where they were fully open and the water flooded up into the yard and into the swimming pool. I would guess the water level would have to raise at least four feet for that to happen.
You'll notice some debris up against the bottom. There's another gate further along, at the back property line, which parallels this one. After the rain, Greg used a garden fork to move lots of debris away from that gate. It was mainly from the dry leaves and such that had fallen from the trees. The owners call this area a dry gulch, but I call it the citrus grove, because that's where we get our oranges, lemons, and grapefruits. I like my name better.
Yesterday, Friday, it didn't rain any significant amount, however it was still unpredictable weather. Late afternoon, this was the sky across the street from the other side of the house ...
And turning north, it looked like this ...
A short while later, less than a mile from the house, the sky had changed colour ...
Our homeowner said a storm was coming. Thankfully, it didn't arrive though. Greg just said "red sky at night ..." and he was right, as today's weather was a great improvement over this past week.
Today is sunny and warmer; I wouldn't exactly say warm. However, at 4 pm, as I write this, I'm sitting out in the sun, which I doubt I'd be able to do if I was at home in Niagara Falls, Canada.
In a couple of weeks you won't have to think about El Nino... looking forward to seeing you here!
ReplyDeleteWow. Lots of wet! We've had rain the last two days, but last week we were out for lots of walks, and Dave was on his bike many times! Don't want to make you jealous though, so I won't tell you more! LOL!!
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