Monsoon Season

We're having hot weather in Fernley — no surprise — but we're also picking up the northern edges of the annual monsoon weather with which the Phoenix area is probably more familiar. Yesterday, after a hot, dry day, a powerful storm moved down from the Sierra and along Interstate 80. The local broadcast of the San Francisco Giants game was interrupted with a flash flood warning. Apparently I-80 was closed between Fernley and Sparks due to flooding. The clouds gathered, and visibility began to drop. The storm was pushing a dust cloud ahead of it. I took pictures of that with my camera-phone, but the files appear to be corrupted. I managed to get my real camera going and took this video, but it was actually after the most wild part of the storm had rushed through, covering everything with grit.

What this video doesn't show as well as I had hoped was how the line of dust clouds rolled along the horizon to the north (in the direction of the railroad tracks). The rain had started to fall as I shot this, and I headed for cover. Rain continued to fall along with heavy winds. As we were eating dinner in the travel trailer, it felt like we were on a ship at sea with the wind buffeting us. That's a bit unnerving.

This morning was cool and calm, and I took a nice walk just before sunrise. This morning has been hot and dry again, but the weather forecast says there's a 50% chance of the same kind of weather as yesterday.