Posted on 07/06/2011 7:59:34 AM PDT by Sprite518
hese amazing pictures from the United States show a wall of dust moving through the city of Phoenix in Arizona. Sandstorms like this happen during the region's monsoon season, which is underway. They occur over desert land and can reach thousands of feet into the air, spurred by strong winds. The dense cloud dramatically reduced visibility, grounding flights at a major airport and leaving thousands without electricity.
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Nature beat all the fireworks displays Monday, not that she had much competition because the lack of rain previous and the troubles in Sierra Vista convinced most of the usual shows to cancel. Really nice old style blower, knocked down 3 trees in my neighborhood, it was great.
My concern for you would be flash flooding, and of course wind related damage.
My favorite way to see lightening, is off in the distance. It’s not because I feel safer, but because it’s great to see the flashes on the nice dark silhouette behind them.
If those flashes are frequent, you can set up your camera with a low ASA setting, with a maxed out F-stop, and using long exposures, capture some excellent displays.
If you’re lucky you’ll get multiple displays in the twenty to thirty seconds the aperture is open.
Take care.
Flash flooding is easy to avoid. It’s always pretty obvious where it could hit, and anybody that gets nailed brought it on themselves. Wind damage is of course luck of the draw.
This is the lightning capital of America. Lots of lightning researchers come here this time of year. And some great pictures, the top one on this page http://www.analyticalsci.com/Astronomy/Hansen/0_HansenPostersPage.htm is pretty much everybody’s favorite.
We, in Phoenix, didn’t call the rain in summer anything. We just said the humidity is going up and the swamp cooler is not going to keep us cool enough to sleep!
I personally think swamp coolers work a lot better in the humid air of the South. Back there you can put a fan on you, and the air is so moist that it feels refrigerated when the breeze hits you.
Dust storm was pretty bad here in Phoenix AND my DH left the side garage door open during the storm. I went out to the garage later and could hardly find my car. Clean up continues.
That sucks, Tucson gets the rain and Phoenix gets the dust, one of the many reasons I stay here. Good luck.
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