Dirty Little Secret

Yesterday I heard my first cicada for the summer. They are this ugly little bug that sit on the tree branches and "sing"... but for us it's just any annoying buzz. When my father in law first came to visit us (in August), the first thing he said, was "I think the street lamp in your court is broken... it keeps buzzing." It took us a few minutes to convince him it wasn't the streetlamp. It was a bug... it wasn't until I walked over to the tree that was buzzing and shook the branches, that the cicada shut up and my father in law "believed". After 3 full summers, and well into my 4th one, I've discovered that when you hear the cicada's buzzing that means Monsoon is here. It's the part of summer that I love and hate all at the same time! The Monsoon is Arizona's "dirty little secret". When I told people I was moving here, I can't tell you how many times people would say, "well, at least it's a DRY heat." Yes, that's true... in May and June. But July and August (and sometimes even September?!?) Fuhgetaboutit... it's anything but DRY! Until this year, the monsoon was declared after we'd had 3 straight days with a dewpoint of 55 degrees or higher. Honestly, until I moved here for a summer, I'd never even paid attention to what a "dewpoint" was! (Click HERE to read more about "dewpoint" and how it works.) Dewpoint typically begins around July 1st give or take a week or two in either direction. With it come humid days, afternoon thunderstorms, crazy rain (not as often as we would like) and dust storms. I look forward to it because it's a change from the same old thing we've been dealing with for weeks, but I dread it because of the humidity. It's so dang miserable. And it know it's not as humid as living in Florida, but they don't get to 110 on a regular basis either... like last summer when we had 32 straight days over 110 or something like that. Let's just say it gets old after a while! I also don't enjoy getting woken up by a thunderstorm at 3 a.m. That has happened several times since I've lived here. I love thunderstorms, but I want them to be done when it's bed time. It's hard to sleep with lightening flashing through every window and thunder booming every 30 seconds. This year, the weather "gurus" have decided to change the monsoon starting date... it's now June 15 every year. Very early for most years, but they are using hurricane season as an example. Official hurricane season usually starts weeks before any real hurricanes develop, but it still reminds local residents to be "on their guard." I guess that's a good idea with monsoons, too. I was just hoping to get a couple more weeks of dryness before it began! Click HERE for some amazing Monsoon photos... I was going to copy a couple and paste them here, but there are too many good ones to steal them in good conscious! Enjoy!