RAIN!

Rain in the desert is a rare thing.  We're supposed to get over half of our annual total (about 10" or 25cm per year) in the months of July and August, but this summer's totals were miserable in our part of town (just over an inch or so), while other parts had plentiful rain.  It was so bad I needed to water our cacti and trees to survive the hot months. 

But finally, this weekend came a confluence of effects that brought a slow-moving "cutoff low" through Arizona, and over the last 24 hours we got about 2" (5cm) of rain.  Interestingly, even though the top of Mount Lemmon got over 5 inches, a trip or two over the Rillito wash while running errand today showed a little stream, not even bank-to-bank, all of today's moisture soaking in instead of running off.  And while it is hard to photograph a rainstorm, I tried, catching drops running down the leaf of a Rhus Lancea (and catching a droplet of drizzle at center left) forming an inverted image of the trunk and fence in the yard, and some of the circular wavelets in the front yard "Lake".

Of all the pictures I took of the circular waves, only one showed any of the effects of falling drops in water that is sometimes seen in flash shots or short exposures.  You might spot them in the photo at left, but it helps to click and load the full-size image to see the column of water in the center of the lower-left wavelet, and many others in this shot show suspended drops as the column drops away.  I'm not sure why this is the only frame that shows any of the effects...

I ran a few errands around town, enjoying
driving through the gentle rain.  Also today was the 31st El Tour de Tucson, and a UA football game.  It was the first time in the el Tour history that steady rains fell!  While I was out and about I happened to catch a small section of a rainbow arc at one of my stops.  Interestingly it is seen over Mr K's Barbecue, which closed down a couple months back...

While stopped at the moment, the precipitation might not be over.  The original forecast had rain into Sunday, with the snow level dropping to the point where we'd see snow in the nearby mountains.  After months and months of no rain, I don't think anyone minds a few days of it...