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.
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