Dogs And Monsoons

I tend to warn students when I know an Arizona Monsoon is on the way. Many dogs escape the property during monsoons and are never recovered. The dust kicked up, prior to the torrential rains and lightning, carries Valley Fever spores, which are also dangerous to dogs. Lightning is dangerous here, too. I encourage my students to watch the weather radar and to get their dogs outside to potty in advance of their arrival. 

I also cancel lessons when a bad storm arrives. 

Years ago, when I lived in the Seattle area, I had a morning appointment in Newport Hills. It was snowing, but I had made that appointment and I was determined to follow through. Well, as I got closer, the snowfall picked up. I then exited the 405 and headed uphill. More and more snow. Now it was getting dangerous. I didn't think I could make it to their house, and I wasn't sure I could drive back down the hill without sliding off the road into a ravine filled with very big pine trees. 

I called them and cancelled the lesson. I continued up the hill and figured out a set of sideways routes to get out of there and back home. 

After that, I decided to never endanger myself again with bad weather. 

Fast forward about 10 years. I was here in Phoenix, heading east from an appointment in the Surprise, AZ area. The sky behind me, on the 101, was black. In the middle of the day. The sky ahead also looked stormy. Well, I decided to head south on the 51 to cut down to I-10, then past the airport, and then to go home. I was looking at the clouds above me, and they were swirling in a big circle. I had never seen something like that before. There was a motorcycle ahead of me. When I drove into the rain, it came down so hard I couldn't see more than about a car length ahead of me. That was just the beginning.

Then it got worse. It was the heaviest storm I had ever been in. The winds were blowing so hard that the rain was going sideways, and tree branches and everything else was flying past my car. The highway was now inches deep in rainfall. The sound was like nothing I have ever heard before. Was this a tornado? I called a family member, told them what was going on. I wasn't sure I should exit the highway since I didn't know what I would encounter at the bottom of the exit. 

By the time I got to I-10, the ferocity of the storm had lessened considerably. And I got ahead of the storm the further I headed east. 

The next day, there were all the damage reports in the news. People who lived along the 51 had their entire roofs blown off in the storm. Micobursts. 

Monsoons are nothing to mess with here. You see them, hear about them, get your dog inside and wait it out. If there is covered parking, like a cement parking garage, maybe that is a good option if you can't get home with your dog in the car with you. 

Here is what I saw last night. It was a doozy. 

That lower part is the dust cloud; it looked like a giant fist. The clouds above were very turbulent. One minute it was just wind, then I drove into that cloud and everything changed. 

I heard some dogs howling during the storm, probably left outside. Another reason I don't believe in leaving dogs outside in Arizona.