Friday, August 12, 2011

Watching the storms

There is something mesmerizing about watching thunderstorms especially when driving through the wide open spaces of a desert. The drive to El Paso can seem long but yesterday I got to watch Mother Nature at her best. I could see the monsoon rains over the mountains and yet it was sunny and clear where I was. The winds involved in the storms were creating Dust Devils (dirt tornado) that start with some dust that turn into twisters. I saw several small ones during the drive. As fast as they would develop they would disappear just as quick. In the desert, rain does make a difference. This past week it has been raining a lot but not in the Alamogordo area so it is brown and dry but in Orogrande, where is rained everyday, the landscape was green.
On the way home from El Paso we hit the storms I was watching earlier about 30 minutes into the drive. We could see the storm we were running into. It looked like a big grey mass of clouds blocking the road. When we hit the rain it was monsoon style and made the truck hydroplane a bit. The lightning was all around us. Once we passed through the storm the lightning behind us created a great light show. The best part about going through the storm is that it washed off the inches of dust that has been collecting on the truck. Thanks Mother Nature for making the drive fun!

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