Vanguard of the Monsoon
Emissaries appear from the tropics ‘south of the border’…
Each year, sometime in June, the oven-dry heat of the Sonoran Desert here in Arizona is transformed.
A wall of humidity rolls up from Mexico, the summer monsoon. “Hell” has officially arrived. Really.
Because of the “heat island” effect, resulting from careless decisions made by “visionary” ‘City Fathers’ – a delusional gaggle of wide-eyed politicians beholden to rapacious developers flocking to losangePhoenix from all over the country – our metropolitan area never cools after the unremitting sun goes down for the day that time of the year.
There is no overnight breather from the oven-like 110+°F/43+°C heat absorbed by 517 square miles of urban sprawl (asphalt, concrete, glass and steel). The City never gets to “exhale” as it would in decades past.
“Cool” mornings occur before and after humidity drops anchor here – plus or minus 76° sunrise after a previous daytime high of +/– 100° with no humidity – our much-celebrated “dry heat” that bookends the monsoon.
However, during our “dry summer monsoon" here – between 8 and 12 weeks long, sometimes more – the overnight temperatures in the city rarely drop below 100°F. (Woo-hoo!)
Come on; join the party! 2018 is our twenty-first year of an ongoing State-wide (actually regional) drought! (Just sayin'.)
Detail: Swimming through 'heat haze' in the desert...
