Rain in the desert.

It's supposed to rain 1/2" during the day today, another 1/2" tonight and possibly another inch tomorrow.  If that forecast is accurate, historical record averages for Dec/Jan (0.59" and 1.05" respectively) will be inundated.  That means we'll have sunny weather from day after tomorrow through Jan 31st, right?  Works for me. 

This is only our second real rainfall since returning to LHC in late September.  Rain doesn't soak in or puddle much here.  Mostly, it runs down the washes and the streets and ultimately, into the lake.  The residential area of LHC is akin to one side of a football stadium, sloping down to the lake and causing the rain runoff to move along right smartly

The runoff picks up tons of sand, gravel and rocks from the washes and deposits them on the streets - job security for the city road crews who spend the next several days scraping and sweeping the deposits back into the washes.  A good rain is also a overtime windfall for city police cuz they need to be out and about, monitoring and shutting down as needed, those streets that are crossed by major washes.  There are numerous wash-crossed streets and the flows on some are several feet deep and quite swift; drive into one of those and your trip to Walmart turns into a ride to the lake, baby!  You won't actually get to the lake either, will get hung up at some culvert or whatever - but you'll have one hell of a ride while it lasts.

Jan is our wettest month historically, Feb & Mar are next, respectively at 0.9" and 0.86"; August comes in at number 4, with 0.67".  I'd guess that there are about 6 heavy, shut-down-the-streets type rainfalls per year.   Our elderly neighbor ladies are joining us for dinner tonight so we can all watch the deluge together.