Five O'Clock Somewhere

Welcome to Five O'Clock Somewhere, where it doesn't matter what time zone you're in; it's five o'clock somewhere. We'll look at rural life, especially as it happens in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, cats, sailing (particularly Etchells racing yachts), and bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Waiting for the Monsoon

In spite of (or according to some of the weather people, because of) having a nice, wet winter and early spring, our summer monsoons haven't arrived yet, but we're waiting.

For those of you unfamiliar with New Mexico weather, the summer monsoons are rainstorms that pop up nearly every afternoon during the summer, starting about the Fourth of July. For farmers, those rainstorms are critical, and for everybody else, they're important for maintaining the state's water supply. This year, we've had a few storms pass through, but the monsoon pattern hasn't started yet. The system in the atmosphere that generates the monsoon rains hasn't gotten itself organized yet.

However, Hurricane Emily may give the monsoons a kick in the pants. After throwing a lot of nasty weather at northern Mexico and the southern end of Texas, she's expected to turn northward. Her energy and moisture may be just the thing to get the monsoons started.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did you read the article about all the dead seabirds on the Pacific Coast? Apparently the waters are so warm and ordinary currents are not 'mixing up' the bottom cold with the top warm water. This has led to much less of the basic food chain food that fed fish which in turn fed the birds. Scientists haven't seen anything like it before. Even during and El Nino year. But I digress

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002377292_ocean13m.html

Hope you get some rain soon!

Wed Jul 20, 05:55:00 AM MDT  
Blogger Carol Anne said...

Well, we had a storm come through today, but it was the very dangerous pre-monsoon type: a whole lot of lightning, to start fires; a good deal of wind, to spread fires; but very little rain, to keep the dryness of the vegetation at a quick-ignition level.

Thu Jul 21, 11:30:00 PM MDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yikes!

Fri Jul 22, 03:00:00 PM MDT  
Blogger Carol Anne said...

Emily reached Albuquerque today, bringing near-record rainfall. She should get here tomorrow.

Fri Jul 22, 11:51:00 PM MDT  

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