You either live in an extraordinarily beautiful place or you are really good at choosing a shot. You’ve been posting about the fire and I keep getting distracted by all the pretty.
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It has its charm, but right now it has this:
FLASH FLOOD WARNING
ISSUED: 7:30 PM JUL. 11, 2020 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
The National Weather Service in Tucson has issued a
Flash Flood Warning for…
Northeastern Pima County in southeastern Arizona…Until 1030 PM MST.
At 726 PM MST, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing
heavy rain over Reddington Pass and the southeast slopes of the
Catalina Mountains northeast of Tucson. This will include eastern
and southern slopes of the Bighorn Fire burn scars. Flash flooding
is expected to begin shortly.HAZARD…Life threatening flash flooding. Heavy rain producing
flash flooding.SOURCE…Radar indicated.
IMPACT…Life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams,
roads and washes.
- Some locations that will experience flooding include…
Tanque Verde, Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, Catalina Foothills and
Seven Falls.Excessive rainfall over the Bighorn fire burn scar will result in
debris flow on eastern and southern slopes and drainages. The debris
flow can consist of rock, mud, vegetation and other loose materials.This includes the following streams and drainages… Ventana Canyon
Wash, Chimney Rock Creek, Esperero Wash, Agua Caliente Wash, Bird
Canyon, Buehman Canyon, Sabino Creek, Alder Wash and Tanque Verde
Wash.PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
Move away from recently burned areas. Life-threatening flooding of
creeks, roads and normally dry arroyos is likely. The heavy rains
will likely trigger rockslides, mudslides and debris flows in steep
terrain, especially in and around these areas.Flooding is occurring or is imminent. It is important to know where
you are relative to streams, rivers, or creeks which can become
killers in heavy rains. Campers and hikers should avoid streams or
creeks.&&
FLASH FLOOD…RADAR INDICATED;
FLASH FLOOD DAMAGE THREAT…CONSIDERABLE
Posted immediately after:
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
ISSUED: 7:39 PM JUL. 11, 2020 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
The National Weather Service in Tucson has issued a
Severe Thunderstorm Warning for…
Northeastern Pima County in southeastern Arizona…Until 830 PM MST.
At 737 PM MST, a severe thunderstorm was located over Tanque Verde,
or 8 miles northeast of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, moving west
at 15 mph.HAZARD…60 mph wind gusts, small hail, dense blowing dust, and
heavy rain.SOURCE…Radar indicated.
IMPACT…Expect damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
- Locations impacted include…
Tucson, Catalina, Oro Valley, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Casas
Adobes, Drexel Heights, Flowing Wells, Tanque Verde, South Tucson,
Pascua Pueblo Yaqui Reservation, Mount Lemmon/Summerhaven, Sabino
Canyon Recreation Area, Catalina State Park, Catalina Foothills,
Valencia West, Tucson International Airport, Saguaro National Park
East, Tucson Estates, Rita Ranch and Seven Falls.This includes the following highways…
Interstate 10 between mile markers 252 and 270.
Interstate 19 between mile markers 58 and 63.
Route 77 between mile markers 70 and 87.
Route 86 between mile markers 165 and 171.PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a
building.Wind damage with this storm and possible dense blowing dust may
occur before any rain or lightning. Do not wait for the sound of
thunder before taking cover. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY inside a
sturdy structure and stay away from windows.&&
HAIL…<.75IN;
WIND…60MPH
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Sounds like the gods of wind and fire are having a pissing contest over where you live. Do you think the rain might help with the wildfire?
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The second of those two sounds more like the Midwest. Speaking of which, I have a railroad radio scanner going (using a hacked version of rtl_fm and an RTLSDR dongle), and a BNSF dispatcher was just issuing wind warnings for 80 MPH gusts in northeast Illinois. It’s still the calm before the storm right around me.
ETA: My lightning monitor just barked at me, so there’s lightning within 25 miles.
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I’m from Arkansas, and this is fucking tornado weather. Temperature went from 100 to 76 in under 30 minutes.
Wildfire is basically done: the problem now is that with the ground cover burned up mudslides and major flash flooding become likely.
Now I get to stress about how much hail my solar panels can take.
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The mudslides hadn’t even occured to me. Is this kind of weather usual for that part of AZ?
I hope both you and your solar panels get through ok.
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Yes and no. We should be getting big monsoon storms as of last week: torrential if brief downpours with big impressive thunderstorms a couple of times a week. But they typically don’t come in with a major temperature drop, rather they drop the temperature with the rainfall, so that concerned me. Also the winds were pretty severe (that only lasted about 20 minutes or so). So yeah, after the fires, mudslide/flash flood rains were definitely expected, but the way it came in was weird.
Update: Facebook full of people with major home damage. Friends apparently lost half of their roof (doesn’t sound like interior rooms are exposed, though).
Huge explosions just north of here followed by sirens heading in that direction, brought to mind transformers blowing up. Power outages registered all over town, although the TEP map includes us in one block, and we still have power.
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That was 8pm. It’s 10pm and back up to 95°.
The wind was gone as quickly as it came: calm, some thunder in the distance, barely a sprinkle at the time, everything dry now.
Update:
Taunting us.
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This is like an only somewhat exaggerated depiction of where my dad grew up. When my grandfather died, the local paper ran a headline “First fire chief dies.” I thought, “that seems overstating things a bit.” Two-mule unincorporated town (back then), but big enough to have a non-zero number of arsons. My grandfather was pretty much volun-told to handle things and got a working, but (even then) old, chain-driven La France from a nearby town. But, yeah, he was the first fire chief, even if by default. A few years later, when they wanted to upgrade, they paraded the fire engine around the football field at halftime to try and drum up donations. The contribution came from a spectator for the visiting team.
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Okay, I have to ask, why did anyone “like” this comment? I just looked back at it and it was a total senior moment: the “pun” was supposed to be sassy-frass, or sassafras, which in my head I mangled with sarsaparilla.
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But it’s a dry heat!
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Because (just as it says at your link!) sassafras is…
the main ingredient in traditional root beer and sassafras root tea
And sassafras is bitter…
Why is my sassafrass root bark tea always so bitter?
And because
Classic U.S. sarsaparilla was not made from the extract of the sarsaparilla plant, a tropical vine distantly related to the lily. It was originally made from a blend of birch oil and sassafras, the dried root bark of the sassafras tree. [Wikipedia]
You’re good in my book, Ratel!
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That made me laugh more than your actual attempt at humor!
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Haha! Reality bends to preserve my stupid pun, but I still can’t get the laundry room door to hang straight on it’s hinges, no matter how much I focus my ire on it.
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Obviously you need to bend reality by making a pun about the door hinges! I bet if you knuckle down you can swing it… 
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Sunsets have moved too far to the northwest for me to get a straight shot in them anymore, alas. This one was a lot of new colors.
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Still not done:
Meanwhile, thanks to the lighting…
(Also, pretty sure they mean “assess”.)
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