Desert Rose: Guest Post by the Weather Witch
I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand
(Sting, Desert Rose)
I’m delighted to present another guest post from a local practitioner of weather witchcraft, Esmerelda. –Jeff
Most people think of deserts as inherently dry places. And they are, most of the time. But their ecosystems critically hinge on the rains coming at very specific times, and in very specific ways. Adam, from over at Adam’s Peace, reminded me of this after my last guest post here (Interview with a Weather Witch II) down in the comments section.
Here is his comment, repeated in full:
“I know that Arizona is a desert… but it is a wet one during key times of the year, and it needs that moisture.
From late July until late August/early September, we get a seasonal series of storms that come from the Gulf of California… very hot and very wet weather that create dramatic thunderstorms and historically have filled our dry river beds to almost the point of flooding in less than an hour.The cacti in the area depend on these seasonal torrents, and the mighty saguaro, which is only found in this one desert (most of Arizona, and parts of California and northern Mexico) literally needs a good flash flood in order to spread its seeds. While the rain is inconvenient to us humans, the loss of these rains has been deadly to the local environment.
Over the last decade, though, these seasonal storms have been disappearing. Part of it is the artificial high pressure zone created by all of the buildings in Phoenix, creating an island of persistent heat… but rainfall all over the Sonoran Desert has been dropping at a steady rate… People think that deserts are supposed to be dead, or something.
So, if I could make a request… Some time next summer, give us a good one.
Reading his description of the storms sweeping over the Arizona desert immediately sent me back to the summer of 1983, when I was 9 years old, and the family vacation we took to the Southwest.
My dad, ever frugal, was pleased as punch that he could get such cheap plane tickets! He didn’t stop to think that perhaps it is because the first two weeks of August were for some reason an unpopular time to visit Utah, Colorado and Arizona… When we ended our adventure in Phoenix, it was so hot (105 in the shade) that we couldn’t touch the metal handrails at our hotel without causing serious injury! We had a very hot but enjoyable time. But my most vivid memory from the entire trip has to do with the weather.
We were driving across the Arizona desert in the late afternoon, on our way to our next hotel. We stopped at a picnic table on a little hillock next to the highway to have a snack. From the top of our hill, we could see for miles around. As we ate, we saw a massive dark cloud come sweeping across the countryside. Lightening danced on the next hill over (possibly 2 miles or possibly 10 miles away; it is so hard to estimate distance on such flat ground!). My dad actually was successful in photographing the blue-purple bolts. After taking a few pictures, my parents scooted us into the car, because it was clear that the storm would be on us in no time. We jumped into the car and started driving. Unlike the other passengers in the car, I did not have problems with motion sickness, so as we drove away from the storm, I turned around in my seat and watched it, with its lightening dancing across the countryside.
And I watched it catch up to us. And suddenly, big floppy drops were hitting the car, and then pounding, pouring rain. As the rain tapered off again a few minutes later, I spun round in my seat and watched as it passed off into the distance in front of us. And it was gone. And then we were driving on wet pavement. And within minutes, we were driving on dry pavement: all of the water that had fallen had already run off into the sand or dried up from the hot blacktop road surface.
My dad does not drive slowly, and the highways out there have pretty high speed limits. We had to have been going at least 65 miles per hour (probably a lot more), and this beautiful storm passed us like we were sitting still.
Yes, we went to Bryce Canyon, and Lake Powell, and the Grand Canyon, and many other places that trip. But the most breath-taking sight I saw was the desert storm that afternoon.
I can still smell the sudden moisture in my nose, feel the electricity in the air on top of the oppressive heat, see the gorgeous colors and hear the cracks of thunder from the next hilltop. It was beyond words.
Adam remembers these storms from his childhood; I have only had the pleasure of experiencing just one. But now, these storms have become less and less frequent, and the saguaro cacti (the foundation of the Sonoran ecosystem) are in trouble. This desert has had this weather pattern for millennia, and the cacti and all of the other creatures depend on this pattern’s continuation for their survival.
I asked Adam for some more details about these storms, just so that we know what to meditate upon. Here is what he sent to me, in a personal email:
“Four inches is plenty for a total of the smaller storms, which happen pretty much every evening. Typical thunderstorms in the region are fast moving fronts that get as far north as Phoenix by sundown, which is when the next day’s moisture is evaporating from the Gulf of California, then continue on through the night up to as far as Flagstaff before losing all of their energy in the cold desert night air… usually around midnight to 2am. Each of these storms typically drop 1/8th of an inch in any one spot, and the rain itself lasts for ten minutes. (You can imagine the dust storms caused by so much energy moving with so much force… A great dust storm is a wonder to behold, so long as you’re behind glass. ;-) )
Historically, during the season, there are two extremely large storms that cause flash flooding. The desert is great at soaking up water quickly, but at a point, it becomes saturated… During the first couple of weeks of the season, it is hard to create a flash flood, but in the third and fourth week, a cluster of storms each week would typically form a super-cell… the leading thunderheads would start slowing down in mid-afternoon, and just like a wave crashing on a beach, the combined force of the faster moving moisture and heat behind would cause the most spectacular storms of the year. The thunderheads crashing together overhead cause ripples across the atmosphere, and typically it would create unusually electric storms in the early morning… The main storm in the evenings would typically drop half an inch each, and it is these storms that are essential for stirring the seeds in the desert.”
Now, those of you who live in Adam’s neck of the woods (as it were) have a special job to do: You need to talk about these storms and remind people that they are normal. So many new people have moved into the area, all with a notion of deserts as dry places, that their dry-mindset is actively keeping the rains away. If you have experienced storms the way Adam has, talk about the summers of long ago. If you are a transplant, talk about what you have read here, and share your new knowledge of how this desert is supposed to work with your friends, relations and neighbors. And when the storms start to come, be happy and thankful for the help that they are providing to the cacti and all of the other creatures that make the Sonoran such a special and living place to be. Call for the rains, and then be joyous when they arrive!
As for me, my plan is to hope for fast-moving, 1/8 inch storms to sweep up from the Gulf of California every afternoon/evening starting now and continuing through the Autumnal Equinox (September 21st). A slightly slower-moving storm, that bunches up all of the clouds from the Gulf to create flash flood conditions, will be wished for on Thursday August 14th, and again on Thursday August 21st. (If we need a third one, Thursday August 28th is waiting in the wings for us.) After all, Thursday is a great day for rain! Especially for a thunderstorm: Adam, may Thor run through your desert for the remainder of the summer!
I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
This rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of her love
July 24th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Hmmmm … I wonder if your Thursday rain invocations could/will use the MP3/lyrics at these links …
http://tinyurl.com/ThorRainChantMP3
http://tinyurl.com/ThorRainChantLyrics
July 25th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I am considered a native to Arizona. My family moved here back in ‘71. It is so nice to here others speak of our desert in this fashion. I have memories of flooded monsoon seasons, cold wet winters and the occasional 1/2 inch snow (yes, even snow). The monsoons came hard and fast and nightly. It was such a welcoming change to our summers. It cleaned the summer dust out of the air, flowers bloomed, everything turned deep green and a subtle sigh of relief swept over all of us. Now I see the clouds build up on the horizon but they rarely reach us. It saddens me to know that it is more of a memory that will teach my children the beauty of the monsoons.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:28 am
Hi, Jeff!
I don’t really have anything to comment on the interview, I’m afraid. But the new layout looks really cool. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. The render on the right is amazing!
July 31st, 2008 at 5:30 am
Strange it only submitted half my comment. here’s the rest (cross-fingers):
But the new layout looks really cool. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it. The render on the right is amazing!…
July 31st, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hmmmm … today (Thursday, July 31), here in Albany, New York — after a sunny morning and noontide it has suddenly started to rain and *rain* and **RAIN**!! (We have had similar storms once or twice a week, usually in the afternoon or evening, for the past few weeks.)
Your Weather Witch and her rain-making crew may have focused a bit too far North-East for their purpose …
August 4th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Mahud: so glad you like it! What browser are you using? The layout is optimized for Firefox (it allows multiple columns with overflow), but I think it looks pretty snappy in IE and Safari too.
Kate: You’re absolutely right. Esmerelda admitted to me that she had probably been focusing a little too vividly on the rain, and now we’re really getting a bit too much up here!
August 4th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Hmmm … would Esmeralda and her friends/colleagues have any way to build an “aiming function” into her spell?
Perhaps decorating the ritual site with giant blown-up print-outs of Google Earth maps of the Southwest — with boundaries drawn in Magic Marker around the area they want it to rain on?
(I keep having these weird thoughts of them dancing around and singing the latitude/longitude boundaries — or the states’/counties’ names — within which the prayed-for rain should fall … )
August 7th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Thunderstorms and mighty rainfalls here again: on Thursday, just as Esmeralda planned … but (again) a couple of thousand miles from her target area.
Do weather witches have a quality control board?
August 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I use Firefox too. I think it looks okay in I.E (although in I.E 6 there’s a horizontal scrollbar). It’s a pity the multiple columns don’t work in the other browsers I checked, for text scanning reasons, obviously. Great that it works in safari!
Did you use CSS or a Script to achieve the columns? You might be able to get it to work for other browsers if you tinkered around with it a bit more.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
If it helps …
Esmerelda and her friends plainly have no problem with sheer *power*: the storms up here in Albany (even fiercer than last week’s) caused a series of blackouts this afternoon as lightning struck, or thunder knocked over, various parts of the power company’s equipment.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Jeff — could you add to your blog a “search this blog” window? Often, I want to re-read (and possibly) comment on some post of yours that I remember once reading, but can no longer find: “Hmmm … where did Jeff discuss whether such a thing as an ‘evil spirit’ exists? I need to re-read that … And he discussed in at least two places whether Spirit issues commandments: one recent posting, and one much older posting: I want to think about his statements a little more, so where can I find them again?” Not having a search-window makes such pursuits difficult or impossible.
August 9th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Kate, just a quick note (I’ll be replying to your other comments as soon as I get a chance): you can use Google to search any site with the following syntax: (search terms) site:(site). For example, to search for “evil spirit” on Druid Journal, you type “evil spirit site:druidjournal.net”.
Hope that’s helpful! Eventually I do plan to put a search box in… somewhere.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Thanks, Jeff! This really helps!
August 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Kate–
In anticipation of writing this post, I had the Sting song stuck in my head (as well as for a few days afterwards). Unfortunately, as the song rolled around up there all day and all night long, I was not simultaneously able to consciously always think of Arizona (or the map of the southwest), and since my default is the northeast, that’s where the t-storms came! (Incidentally, when I had the original conversation with Adam and drafted in my head the post, there were some freak t-storms down in Arizona.)
The bigger issue was that this past week, my _mother_ was all worried about the possibility of rain ruining her outdoor plans, so of course, it did! Quite thoroughly! It _always_ rains on her parade… I worked actively to dry out her influence, and was partially successful. I have a lot more success at dealing with her weather effects when I am not located in the same building as her!
Other than bringing a day’s worth of t-storms and flashfloods to the Sonoran Desert (hey–did you see the forecast? they’re coming…), I’ve been focusing on the Atlantic hurricane season. An average year has 10 named storms: 5 tropical storms and 5 hurricanes. Of those hurricanes, only 2 are level 3 or higher. What we have had so far: Tropical Storm Arthur, Category 3 Bertha, Tropical Storm Cristobal, Category 2 Dolly, and Tropical Storm Edouard. This leaves 2 more tropical storms, one category 3 hurricane, and 2 hurricanes in the category 1-2 range. There is a storm forming right now, bringing much needed rain to Puerto Rico at the moment, which looks like it is ready for the big time. It could either track to Florida or to NC; at the moment, NC needs the rain more, but the whole southeast could use a good dousing. This region of the country _needs_ these sorts of storms for their ecosystems to flourish; people have built too many houses too close to the shore for there to be no damage done during the rains and winds. I think a good category 1 hurricane that ploughs up inland (through northern Georgia and South Carolina, into western North Carolina, maybe grazing the coast of Florida on its way) would be most beneficial. Early next week, keep your eyes peeled for Fay!
I am also trying to dry out the effects of my mother. So far, so good!
Merry Weathering!
August 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Well, the weather here looks normal (no deluges, so far) — you must have had some effect …
August 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
What “Sting song” do you mean?
August 14th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
The Thor rain-chant and lyrics come from singer/composer/witch Leslie Fish — http://www.lesliefish.com — not Sting at all.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Kate–
The song I had in my head was Sting’s “Desert Rose”, the one I quote at the beginning and end of the post! I had it in my head back in January, and again in July. Sorry for the confusion!
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Hurricane Fay has notoriously deluged the southeastern United States. I (and doubtless Esmerelda and her fellow Arizonans) keep on waiting to hear of storms in the southwest. Good luck …
August 26th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Well, judging from recent weather reports, it looks as if the tropical storms and other rainstorms have begun getting to where Esmeralda and her friends want/need them …
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Uh … Esmerelda … did you *plan* to aim at New Orleans?