Arizona Monsoon 2016 Highlights

So let's take a break from the activism for a bit and explore one of the other reasons for this blog's existence. 

I've said it before.  I'm a frustrated storm chaser.  I'm fascinated by weather and storms and if I could afford it I'd have one of those home weather stations just so I could check barometric pressure and wind speed every 5 minutes.

Alas, I'm just an enthusiast with a smartphone and an old 1 Megapixel camera that eats batteries like a 5 year old eats fruit loops.

Below are some of my favorite examples of this year's Arizona Monsoon season.  I actually got lucky in  a few videos and caught some dramatic shots but truth be told this year's monsoon was more about wind than rain.  In fact the meteorologists are saying we're actually down 2 inches this year having not broken 5 inches in total.  

Some places got much more than that but those were isolated cases.  In one storm event a part of the valley received 3 inches of rain in an hour.  That doesn't sound like much if you're from the Midwest or deep South but here it translates into freeways underwater and cars floating around.

Of course I can't let this post end without mentioning that you can enjoy most of these videos Ad Free thanks to TWIT's abuse of YouTube's copyright system.  The very same one that Leo's brain-dead zombie henchmen led by the #DarkTrollWitch  have used to demonetize the entire channel till November....

Leo's on a boat for this year's vacation.  I hope he doesn't get too seasick but Karma being what it is....

Anyway...

Try to enjoy these snippets of time from this year's Arizona Monsoon storms brought you courtesy of my crappy cameras and poor videography.  

You might see something that surprises you!

Peace..

The Arizona Monsoon has started!

I'm many things...

An IT guy, Gearhead ( Petrolhead to you UK guys), Gamer, Writer....

None of which are doing much for my wallet these days.

But one of the things these downtrodden, lean times has taught me is to appreciate what the world offers up.

To that end, I've become a fan of Arizona's Monsoon season.

For the past few years I've been grabbing video of the yearly monsoon storms that rage across the state from late June till Mid September.

I'm a frustrated storm chaser at heart as weather events fascinate me.

But like everything else I'm stuck doing it a bit half-assed.  I can't afford to chase a storm more than a couple of miles from my house which is why most videos originate from there.

But sometimes I get some great stuff simply because if there's a storm in the valley there's about a 75% chance that my house is going to be in it's path.

Take a gander at the latest videos I have from this year ( 2016 ) of the start of the season.  The first one captures the first storm of the season while the second one is a bit more dramatic with Thunder and lots of lightning.

I hope you get as much enjoyment out of them as I did capturing the excitement.  

Arizona Monsoon 2015 Highlights

Over on this blog's sister YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/digidyn you won't find much in the way of commentary on current events but what you will find is an eclectic mix of whatever happens to cross my camera lens.

Here in Arizona we just finished up our yearly Monsoon storm season and I made a concerted effort this year to grab footage of every storm.

They say Phoenix averaged 3.29 inches of rain from June 15th to September 30th (*start/stop dates for the season) That's actually 1/2 an inch above the seasonal average of around 2.5 inches.

I know in many parts of the country that's about as much rain as you get in an hour but what we lack in precipitation we make up for in drama.  Last year (2014) was historic with close to 7 inches of rain for the season most of which came in one day causing flooding that shut down the I-10 freeway and put entire subdivisions underwater.

Central Arizona isn't used to handling a lot of water at once so when it happens things can get ugly fast.  

Below are a few videos I took from this season.  You can see all of them on the YouTube channel and there's a playlist in case you want to see all my monsoon videos going back to 2008.

Here's to proof that I'm not just some curmudgeonly troll sitting around waiting for something to bitch about in a blog post!

As always, enjoy!

A rare early morning storm after dawn

Late season and one of the more intense storms

This was the last storm of the season

A playlist of all my past Monsoon videos