Rain Rain Go Away

Well, it's Monsoon time here again in Arizona. Many people outside the Valley of the sun think that it is always dry here. Not so. As us local "Zonies" know, around about the end of July through August we get Monsoon rainstorms. Oh, and I don't mean those little bitty "drizzles" that people in other parts of the country call rainstorms, or "downpours" oh no, those are nothing. If you're from out of town, think about the highest water volume storm you've ever seen..... Not even close. You've heard, and probably used terms like "downpour", "torrential rain", "it came down in buckets", and the standard "raining cats and dogs"? Well, if we were to use the same metaphors here, it wouldn't be called raining cats and dogs, more like raining rhinoceros and elephants. It rains so hard, you get soaked pushing your trashcan out to the curb. Rain so hard, I half expect some guy to be gathering animals 2 by 2, and herding them towards a boat. But that's not the cool part..... It's the lightning that precedes it. Magnificent lightning, very intense. You know how in other places, sometimes you "get lucky", and just happen to be looking up in the right direction to see lightning in the sky? Here, you don't have to search. Just look up, in any direction at all, and in a few seconds, you'll see them. Not one or two....... But Dozens. And not straight up and down bolts either, but long lasting, arcing, and branching sideways across the sky..... It's hard to describe, except to say........ Awesome. The storms are so amazing, that sometimes, people in my neighborhood even come out of their houses to stand on the front porch to watch the storms. They come up fast, and just as quickly gone. The streets dry up in an hour, and shortly afterwards, there's little trace left of the storm, but the memory, and reverification of an old saying......... Don't mess with Mother Nature :-)