Desert Storm(s)
I am pleased to tell you that there are summer storms in Reno! who knew?!
Thursday was a short but sincere little storm that got the gutters running and the asphalt steaming, then went away. This was the first rain in about ten weeks and it rapidly becamse clear that Reno has accumulated a lot of scum in that time.
It was pretty gross -- nasty gray water full of trash pouring into the river from the storm drains. Even more disgusting, all of downtown smelled like stale piss. The inescapable image was of ten weeks of drunks peeing in the alleys and on the buildings, then... heat well and just add water (enough water to get the stuff moving, but not enough to wash it away), and what do you have? a license to ill!
Friday we had another storm - the rain started about 5-ish, and poured pretty hard off and on for about two hours. There were clear skys westward over the Sierras, it looked like the clouds started at about the California border, then nothing but deep blue-grey thunderclouds overhead and to the eastern horizon. Towards sunset the sun peeked under the cloud cover and we got rainbow-rama - huge, bright 'bows touching ground on both ends.
...and it turns out that we were not to get any more measurable amounts of rain again for at least another ten weeks! so yes, we are in the rain shadow of the Sierras appended Oct 4, 05
Thursday was a short but sincere little storm that got the gutters running and the asphalt steaming, then went away. This was the first rain in about ten weeks and it rapidly becamse clear that Reno has accumulated a lot of scum in that time.
It was pretty gross -- nasty gray water full of trash pouring into the river from the storm drains. Even more disgusting, all of downtown smelled like stale piss. The inescapable image was of ten weeks of drunks peeing in the alleys and on the buildings, then... heat well and just add water (enough water to get the stuff moving, but not enough to wash it away), and what do you have? a license to ill!
Friday we had another storm - the rain started about 5-ish, and poured pretty hard off and on for about two hours. There were clear skys westward over the Sierras, it looked like the clouds started at about the California border, then nothing but deep blue-grey thunderclouds overhead and to the eastern horizon. Towards sunset the sun peeked under the cloud cover and we got rainbow-rama - huge, bright 'bows touching ground on both ends.
...and it turns out that we were not to get any more measurable amounts of rain again for at least another ten weeks! so yes, we are in the rain shadow of the Sierras appended Oct 4, 05