We returned from our vacation to find that we had just missed a huge monsoon storm by one day. Streets flooded, a swift water rescue, trees down, the works. Lucky for us monsoon season has been pretty good this year and we didn't miss out on all the fun.
Early last week we had a microburst hit Rita Ranch, the part of Tucson where we live. For those who have never experienced a microburst, it's basically a really intense, super concentrated storm. This is what it looked like from a few miles away.
We were upstairs when it hit and couldn't see anything out the window except rain pounding on the window. Visibility was like 5 feet. The wind was blowing the water straight into the front of our house, and the window in the girls' room started leaking/flooding through the tiny little vent at the bottom. I got a towel set up there, then went to check the other windows. Sure enough, the other two windows on the front of the house were pooling with water. The rest of the windows were fine. After checking the windows I went to the girls' room window and the towel was soaked almost all the way through.
We were upstairs when it hit and couldn't see anything out the window except rain pounding on the window. Visibility was like 5 feet. The wind was blowing the water straight into the front of our house, and the window in the girls' room started leaking/flooding through the tiny little vent at the bottom. I got a towel set up there, then went to check the other windows. Sure enough, the other two windows on the front of the house were pooling with water. The rest of the windows were fine. After checking the windows I went to the girls' room window and the towel was soaked almost all the way through.
The kids loved watching the storm. I remember as a kid doing exactly what they did: sitting at the window staring out at the storm, loving every minute of it.
After the rain let up a little the kids wanted to go play in the river street. By that time the water had receded significantly. At one point the whole street was full of water and full bags of garbage were floating down the street, after the garbage cans that had been put out for the garbage pick up the following day were blown over.
The kids had a blast splashing in the water and came back home completely drenched.
We soon found out that the microburst had wreaked havoc all over Rita Ranch. Trees were down all over, some fell on cars or walls. Here are a couple pictures a friend of mine took in our neighborhood:
Shingles were blown off tons of houses, some had huge portions of wood showing on their roof. Thankfully we escaped any real damage to our home.
Yesterday another storm hit. This time it was just a regular old awesome monsoon, none of that destructive microburst stuff. The kids again had a blast playing in the river that our street became, and jumping in puddles. We love monsoon season!
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