Feel The Fury of the Storm!

In August, I have plenty to film from my home.  Our monsoon is still very active.  In a special two part series about monsoon today and tomorrow, you'll get to see what happens here in the desert:) and why this time of year is just amazing.

All of these shots today were taken from around El Presidio gardens.  It was a good thing because this guy has zero dinero right now to go on birding/wildlife trips.  This may surprise some but I have a lot more exploration to do around Arizona AND especially Southern Arizona. 

I'm still working on my lightning shots but I'm pretty happy with these.  They seem to turn out better at night.

I love this shot of El Presidio from above.  It's raining in the dark with lovely hues of blues and pinks flashing all around the property.

Some people, like myself, actually will enjoy the lighting while others don't even realize what's going on outside.  Their loss.  It's a pretty spectacular show.  The best part?  Our storms are so powerful here sometimes they create massive dust storms known as "haboobs" that push into the city known as Phoenix.  Here in Tucson, we think that is okay;)

Of course, I have to make sure the lightning is just far enough off before actually walking around the property to snap shots.  Too many people get struck in the desert and die.  Some of you may even smile at the idea and I understand. I think everyone laughs at the idea until someone is hit and then it goes into, "That sucks!"  But it happens.  And yes, a golfer last year lifted his pole into the air and bit the dust when a random bolt hit him out of nowhere.  And so the saying goes, "At least he died loving what he was doing."  I'm not so sure his family would agree with that statement today.

In several of the pics, you'll see lightning flash inside of what we term "storm cells".  These "cells" can grow or shrink in isolated pockets. And sometimes they can join together and create one massive cell.  That is explosive and dangerous at times.  The ones everyone tries to avoid are the "microbursts".  That is just a free fall of all the rain down on one spot.  It can cause a roof to cave in or pull trees out of the ground.  Dangerous stuff.

These storms cannot really be predicted as they just happen when they happen.  Individual cells can and do move as they will throughout the night sky.  But on this particular night, the storms were "training" over Tucson.  This means that it would continue to rain over the same areas and storms would continue to rain without sunshine for a power up.

As a special post, a first for Las Aventuras on lightning, I put together a video showing off nature's fireworks here from midtown Tucson. It was picked up by an internet weather station to be shown at a later date.  You'll be able to see it now:) Until next tomorrow....