The Fireworks Continue

The monsoons are treating us to some magnificent light shows. We have had thunderstorms almost every afternoon or evening. The pattern is the same – the morning comes bright and clear, cool until about 9:30. By mid day, the clouds have either built over the mountains or moved up from the south. By late afternoon, or more lately, by nightfall, the storms are active, with lightening flashing from low-hanging clouds which are, in turn, trailing rain along, obscuring spots and lines of the horizon.


Monday night, the lightening was PINK! I thought I was imagining things. The storm was far south over the desert and the lightening was mostly within the clouds or cloud-to-cloud. And it was pink. I had to come in and google pink lightening to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Nope, they weren’t; there really is pink lightening. I was tempted to get into the car and drive to a high point and watch, even to try for some pictures.

Today, I watched the storm cloud roll right overhead. I mean that quite literally. Over the ridge at the bottom of our street, the sky was clear blue with white clouds. Overhead, it was pouring rain and hail. I tried to take a picture of the blue sky and clouds through the downpour. The blue and the clouds were there but the rain was lost in the foreground of the image. I’ll have to do a little more studying on how to capture some of these images that are so clear to my eye and mind.

After dinner, though, we went for a walk and I did grab these two shots, just to give a hint of the different cloud formations at different altitudes. By the way, don’t miss the moon in the embrace of the clouds in the second picture.

Last week I took a day off and went to the beach! Well, more accurately, to the river’s edge. The Gila River up near Cliff, NM--about a hour away. There is a day use area on Gila Forest-land that borders the river. We spend the day with blankets, a picnic lunch, floats, binoculars, and cameras. It was wonderful to have the day to play and have the river to play in. I posted several other shots on flikr. Those shots include my friend Gail floating; doesn’t it look like fun on a hot day? And typically, we ran into a hard pelting downpour as we came home into Silver City.

The silver lining: thanks to all the rain, everything is so green. The hillsides and grasslands, the pastures and meadows, the roadsides and lawns. We’ll enjoy the green for as long as the monsoons last and a little longer too.