Right now, it's raining, with occasional booms and cracks of thunder. (I use stronger words here than "rumbles" or "echoes" because the thunder is simply that close. It's great!) The thunderheads were gorgeous this afternoon in the heat of the day, dominating the overhead vista like huge collections of billowing white cotton. Sometimes, here, they develop so quickly you can watch them grow.

Yes, I like thunderstorms. Thus, living in the southwest U.S. during the monsoon season gives me many chances to hang out with these beautiful, though powerful, events. Especially compared to the Pacific Northwest.

Why do we get so many thunderstorms during this part of the year? The monsoon brings low-level moisture into an arid, hot region with uneven terrain. Afternoon heating and/or forced uplift of air (usually from mountains) spawns the development of cumulonimbus clouds, which can develop into isolated t-storms or large groups of them, depending on the local and regional conditions. Thunderstorms are most common in the afternoon, but they can peak in the morning or evening as well. We were kept up late one Sunday night due to a strong storm that started at 10:30pm and had lightning (and thunder) so frequently it felt like we were in a packed stadium, not our little apartment.

Unfortunately, other baggage comes attached to the more interesting weather. Flash floods are common due to the intensity of the storms, causing the NWS and weather.com to have multiple links to various special weather statements and warnings regardless of how far away most of the area actually is from the region at risk. It doesn't help that much of the drainage system relies on washes, rather than storm drains, to direct the water flow. (What's a wash? As far as I can tell, a wash is a dry river bed that tends to flow again whenever it rains. See Wikipedia's article on Tucson.) Also, power flickers and failures are far more prevalent than I would have expected. It's comforting to know where a flashlight is at all times.

What also bothers me is that I can't easily watch the weather from the comfort of our own apartment. The two actual windows we have are partially covered by bushes, preventing us from seeing much when looking through them (it doesn't help that they are terribly grimy to begin with). The view from the front door's windows and the tiny window in the kitchen simply show the walls of the nearby apartment buildings, and the scene from the covered porch isn't much better. I have to wander around like an idiot just to check out what's going on firsthand. As a budding atmospheric scientist, that bothers me. Oh, and to add insult to injury, we had an especially strong downpour at home the other day and discovered that the irritating dripping noise we'd heard with the late-night storm that one Sunday was due to water leaking into the bedroom from above the window.

At least we won't be here much longer. I'm so excited for a change of scene!

There are many reasons I'm looking forward to moving out of our apartment into a real home, most of which could comprise its own post (if not more than one), but the main one associated with this topic is this: I can't wait to have lots of windows facing nearly every direction in order to watch storms more easily, with no three-story buildings dominating the nearby landscape to block my view. It won't hurt to have a covered patio facing an open backyard and other houses which can't obscure most of the sky, too.