The Rain Arrives

In the Parowan Valley, the month of June is typically our driest. By the middle of July, however, we can expect to start seeing monsoonal moisture. In 2012, I noted that we waited 56 days for the monsoons to start, with our first notable rainfall occurring on 13 July. This year, it started a week early. On Tuesday, the 8th, we got so much rain in Parowan that our basement flooded. It wasn't a bad flood, but there was enough water outside the house to pool-up and run in our doors and windows. Two days later, on the 10th, I drove from Marysvale to Parowan in near constant rain. These weren't isolated showers, instead the sky was low and grey from horizon to horizon. It is hot and sunny again now, but I guess the June drought is officially over for 2014. (As a minor aside, when Willa Cather writes about drought—as she does in Death Comes for the Archbishop—she spells it "drouth.")