FAQ: Chasing the Southwestern Monsoon

Thank you Tim! I'm glad people are finding it useful.

Tornado comment:

As we know, it takes many ingredients to make a tornado, Southwest tornadoes do not happen with near as much frequency or intensity as in the Plains.

Lack of a strong summer jet has been cited as one reason. Interesting to note the position of the jet stream, dipping into the Southwest, these last few days.

Look what happened, two tornado warnings took place at the end of this week near Flagstaff, and today, southeast of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Santa Fe, New Mexico also became warned on.

Anyone see funnels? Feel free to comment. I'm going to look into this more.
 
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Date palms, originally from the Middle East, are commonly seen thoughout the Arizona and California deserts. They are one of my favorite trees. They look beautiful and provide luscious dates when they're cultivated.

The storm that night, about 2 weeks ago, was quite violent, knocking out power and battering the town of Maricopa, Arizona in the Central Deserts.

The storm in the picture is actually behind the trees a bit, maybe half a mile or so behind the little "oasis". The trees also are lit from beneath by ornamental lighting.

StromHotDates2.jpg
 
Hi Susan, wonderful writeup, have been enjoying it and hope to test some of it out in the near future.

In the meantime though, I'm down in Florida, and depending on what type of image I am looking for depends on which lense I use (100mm, 70-200mm, 50mm and sometimes my wide angle). Was just wondering, what lenses do you use and why? Which do you find gives you more keepers in general? And anything else that makes a difference for you while shooting.

Thanks again.

-Christine
 
Thanks Christine! Most of the time I'm on my 50mm. Once in awhile 135 but mostly 50mm.

I'm so tired as I write this. Pictures will have to come later. Tonight was an endless freight train of massive, severe thunderstorms in PHX valley. I started working with crazy CGs in the Central Deserts then worked north for several hours. The storms soon unleashed heavy torrential downpours as well, flooding streets and blowing horizontal rain on the wind gusts like hurricane. I could only compare the constant lightning to a strobing discotheque.

Tonight was the most violent monsoon storm I have seen all summer.

Winds reached 100mph. No wonder why there is debris everywhere this morning. News:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/08/29/20080829storms0829-ON.html
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/124353

Although this was violent, these types of conditions do occur with the Monsoon storms. A few years ago, 122mph was measured at a local north Phoenix airport. Powerlines come down somewhere almost every time there is a storm. Cloud-to-ground lightning happens frequently. Microburst is another common threat and can cause substantial damage. Flash flooding occurs as well with the torrential downpours. Monsoon storms can unleash extreme and dangerous conditions.
 
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Thanks Susan!

Looking forward to seeing the images, but certainly can understand if it takes awhile to get them up. Those news articles - wow. Stay safe and holler if ya need a bucket to bail out with or a canoe.
 
Thanks!

While I was busy chasing the lightning in the Central Deserts Thursday night, Tempe in the Valley was getting slammed with 80mph winds. I passed through Tempe yesterday and realized the extent of the damage was quite incredible. Block after block sustained hurricane-like damage, hundreds of downed large trees, building damage, sheet metal debris, blown out windows and some collapsed garages. Cleanup down there is going to be a massive effort because of how widespread the damage is. It looked exactly like they were pounded with multiple microbursts and that people were still without power.

The 100mph winds didn't do Phoenix any favors either. Damage was spread around town.

I didn't get into too much trouble with flying debris because I was out in the deserts. I had my eye on some incredible CGs and also had to watch for flash floods and blowing sand.

But the urban stuff can get to sailing in microburst and 100mph conditions, as it happened in Tempe and Phoenix.
 
Hi Susan, It was a wild night. Constant lightning, like strobe lights. It reminded me of some of the big midwest supercells. On 40th St. lots of downed power poles, the damage is pretty bad all over town. I got some penny sized hail but I talked to John Moore and he said he found some inch sized hail. I hope you got some great shots! Be careful out there Susan!
 
Well today's the day, the Monsoon 2008 season is officially ended (9/30). I'm a little sad & misty lol

A few storm highlights I experienced from very generous Arizona Monsoon 2008:

-A full haboob sandstorm in the Central Deserts
-An eerie night with constant (yes, no breaks at all in the sound) thunder for several hours - a solid line from Sacaton to Fountain Hills (East Valley) and heard reports that this was going on all over the Valley.
-Heavy building, roof and tree damage in Tempe
-Shot CGs during horizontal rain several times at Sky Harbor Airport, which was closed due to storms on more than one occasion
-Lots of powerlines down; wind even reached 100+ mph

I hope Monsoon chasers out there had fun (I know some of you hit the notorious break week of late July) but other than that... Monsoon 2008 was something else, in my book, second only to the 92-day storm fest that was 1999. I'm still processing this year's work!
 
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Susan,

This was a simply marvelous and extremely insightful thread about the southwest monsoon. I've really enjoyed reading about all your experiences and in-depth analysis with monsoon chasing. =)

I did my fair share of monsoon chasing in New Mexico over the last few months and absolutely loved it so I can certainly appreciate and understand how so many around here fall in love with desert storms. Having just recently moved from Kansas, the storms in the southwest without a doubt behave differently than those in central plains. One thing that amazed were how high the cloud bases truly were, yet they were able to produce enormous amounts of rain in such a short amount of time. They also had a tendency to pulse quite a bit and often had a "wispy" appearance near the top of the storm where eventually the storm would become very elongated horizontally (hope that made a little sense!)

The monsoon in New Mexico was a wonderful season as well. It started around the third week in June and lasted through early-September with very few breaks in between. It was such an exciting experience to have the opportunity of seeing a thunderstorm somewhere in the vicinity of my location almost everyday during the monsoon season. The only minor downside with this season was the lack of electrical storms late at night over central NM. I believe there were only two really impressive lightning shows during the evening hours although I believe a huge reason for the lack of activity was due to the fact I was hoping to finally get some decent shots of lightning and Mother Nature decided to show her sense of humor as soon as the camera and tripod came out, haha.

I can understand and sympathize with the monsoon season coming to a close so I'll shed those tears with ya, lol. I am about to get horribly spoiled with the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta beginning this weekend so that should help curb some of the monsoon withdrawals.

Thanks again for such an informative thread. Can't wait to see some more amazing images from this monsoon season!
 
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Susan, the monsoon season was truly remarkeable for AZ this year (2008). I live in SoCal near Lake Elsinore and we get affected here by the western-most surges of the monsoon flows, but not as often as I would like :( . Monsoon season has been my passion since my childhood :D . Thanks for sharing such spectacular photos on your website. Hope to meet up with you sometime out in Az during my chases. I love lightning photography and am always in "hot" pursuit of lightning shots of my own.

-W
 
Ok--be sure to stay in touch with me--I live in Az and would like to co-op some chases,the stuff in feb/march is always wild. so maybe we can join up and shoot some good pics/video?
 
So true about SoCal - my first monsoon thunderstorm I had ever experienced was getting pounded by huge CGs in the Inland Empire and also Palm Springs at 4am later on while driving east toward Phoenix. LA is not exempt from monsoon. Good times =)

So glad to hear from others who chase monsoon! This year was one to remember. It was so extremely active and wild, with an exception of a window in late July that was Dolly-impacted, Mark is right about that. Also, that is when some film crews were here from the UK so we really had to work hard for it that week! But then the faucet turned back on again and things got really crazy particularly in the Central Deserts where I found myself night after night.

Dennis you chase the equinox? Weird stuff happens at that time of year around here. Feb/Mar - mostly quiet but strange weather can kick up, from a stray lightning storm to a late snow that covers golf courses!
 
I live in the Sedona area about 50 miles south of Flagstaff on 89A in the town of Cottonwood. We have not gotten a very intense severe thunderstorm in about 3 years i think it is becase that we live so close to Mingus Mountain. I am missing the intense storms that seemed to always happen in this area. those kind of storms seem to intensify around the Sedona area. And good pictures by the way and have you ever done any chasing in the Sedona region?
 
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