Tag: North American Monsoon

And the rains (and hail) came…

It’s been a dry spring—and before that, a dry winter—but the rains have finally arrived. The North American Monsoon has started across Arizona and it’s right on time. The rains usually arrive during the first two weeks of July. Rain started falling on the 2nd of July and hasn’t stopped yet. The average rainfall for July at the Flagstaff airport is 2.61″. We have already had 2.64″ and it’s only the first week. At least one location around town has had even more as shown by the rainfall map below.

Rainfall for 01-07 July 2014.
Rainfall for 01-07 July 2014.

Some of these storms have produced copious amounts of small hail. As the vast quantities of hail on the ground chill the near-surface air fog forms and is known appropriately as hail fog.

Hail fog.
Hail fog.

Most of this hail was pea sized or smaller—nothing large or severe. Even hours after the hail fell there were still piles of it along the side of the road.

Lots of small hail.
Lots of small hail.

It’s only the first week of the rainy season and I’m ready for a day with sunshine.

Lightning season has begun

The summer rainy season — known as the North American Monsoon — has begun across Arizona. Over the past week thunderstorm activity has increased substantially. Some locations have already received their average July rainfall in only a few days while other locations have had only a trace of rain. Flagstaff has been one of the wet places and has had a tremendous amount of rain, large hail, and lightning and there have been some good opportunities to catch lightning with a camera.

Cloud-to-ground lightning with the San Francisco Peaks in the distance.
Cloud-to-ground lightning with the San Francisco Peaks in the distance.
Lightning strikes behind the San Francisco Peaks.
Lightning strikes behind the San Francisco Peaks.

The second image is a composite of two separate photographs taken a few minutes apart with slightly different lighting and cloud structure.

 

A foggy night in northern Arizona

It’s still the rainy season but this is silly. The amount of rain that has fallen in Bellemont, Arizona, in August is quickly approaching eight inches. Meanwhile, a few miles away at the Flagstaff airport, a more reasonable two and one-half inches has fallen this month. Most of that rain in Bellemont has fallen in the past few days. As a result, the ground is fairly saturated and there is plenty of standing water. This produces good conditions for nighttime fog in the area.

Fog during the pre-dawn morning hours.
Fog during the pre-dawn morning hours.

The first image was taken well before sunrise with plenty of stars visible. More striking, however, is the patch of fog and low clouds on the right — nicely illuminated by the lights.

Early morning fog creeping down the hillside.
Early morning fog creeping down the hillside.

The next image was taken shortly after sunrise and shows the fog lurking on the hills above the flats of Bellemont. The trees poke out through the top and the light poles add some foreground texture to the image.

Lightning and Mammatus: The beauty of thunderstorms

The North American Monsoon is bringing thunderstorms to the southwest United States including northern Arizona. You would think that with almost daily thunderstorms it would be easy to shoot great images of lightning and thunderstorms. Well, not always…

One of the characteristics of the rainy season in the higher elevations of northern Arizona is that as the storms develop in the late morning or early afternoon it quickly becomes overcast so that it is difficult to see the individual storms. It is equally difficult to photograph lightning because it is often raining over large areas obscuring the view of the lightning.

Lightning in Sunset Crater National Monument.
Lightning in Sunset Crater National Monument.

So I was particularly pleased when we had two days in a row in which I was able to photograph lightning and actually see the thunderstorms. The lightning was photographed in Sunset Crater National MonumentĀ overlooking the Bonito Lava Flow; the mountain that it is striking is O’Leary Peak. There is a fire lookout station at the summit of the peak and I’m certain they get their fair share of close bolts.

Sunset colors on an Arizona thunderstorm.
Sunset colors on an Arizona thunderstorm.

The following day proved equally photogenic. This thunderstorm was photographed in late afternoon and is quite dramatic with mammatus clouds visible from the anvil region of the storm.

If only everyday was as photogenic as these two.