Time to Build That Ark?

by ANDREW HEDGES :: AUG 2, 2006 :: COMMENTS (0)

While the rest of the country suffers through an oppressive heat wave, Albuquerque has spent the last several weeks drenched by monsoon rains.

We've had temperatures 10-15 degrees below normal and the wettest July on record coming via torrential storms, "real wrath of God stuff," most days. The way it works (usually) is that the day starts out pretty normal, mostly blue skies, maybe a little breezy. By mid-afternoon, though, dark clouds start forming and by 6 or 7 o'clock the wind is howling and buckets of rain are being deposited on the high desert.

In a lot of places (like where I grew up, the U.S. Pacific Northwest), rain is something that is tolerated and sometimes derided. When you live in a desert that has been in drought for 9 years (that's *dry*), rain is fairly celebrated. People gather at the window to watch it come down like it's the first snow of winter.

This is only my third summer in Albuquerque, but this is by far the most rain I've seen in my time here. Our backyard is xeriscaped (in our case, that's just a fancy name for dirt). The rains have turned it into a big field of mud. Great for the dogs. Not so great for the carpet.

The rains have been a relief for this parched landscape. I drive by a forest service fire danger sign on my way to work. In the last week it changed from "high" to "moderate" for the first time I have ever seen.

Normally, nature's palette here is a ruddy tan, the color of our dirt. With the rains, there is now a tinge of green overlaying the normal browns. The desert is coming to life. It's quite beautiful.

One downside to the monsoons is that it renders ineffective the most common household air conditioning system here: the swamp cooler. Swamp coolers (aka "evaporative coolers") cool the air in your house by drawing it in through water-soaked filters. When the humidity gets over about 30% (high by Albuquerque standards), they just don't work well. Of course, things could be worse…

I feel bad for folks in L.A. where it was recently a record 119 degrees and New York where temps are in the triple digits and commuters are withering on the subway platforms. We're usually the ones suffering high temperatures in the summer. Right now, the tables are turned.

tags: ALBUQUERQUE, ENVIRONMENT, WEATHER

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