You can’t really blame local TV weather forecasters for playing up the Arizona monsoon.
First of all, it poses a definite element of danger if you’re out driving in the middle of its often violent dust storms and thunder-and-lightning-laced downpours, usually in the late afternoons and early evenings in July and August.
And second, after going through May and June saying nothing but how it’s hot and getting hotter, if they could predict anything was going to fall out of a cloud, even if it was a torrent made of candy, they’d still be producing those ominous special reports you’ve been watching these last several weeks:
“Rainbow-Colored Sprinkles from the Sky: What YOU Need to Be Prepared.”
So you just have to applaud the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) for taking a lighter approach to this admittedly hazardous time of year.
ADOT is employing social media to get all of us to talk about their “Pull Aside, Stay Alive” campaign, which in addition to staying out of monsoon storms applies to most any activity you shouldn’t do while driving: texting, shaving, applying makeup, yelling at your kids in the back seat or ducking down to the floorboards so the neighbors don’t see your ugly hairstyle. With the annual monsoon here, ADOT is asking us to contribute a “Haboob Haiku” or two on Twitter (#haboobhaiku), “haboob” being the Arabic name for the dust storms we get during the monsoon.
Monsoon is derived from the Arabic “mausim,” or “season,” which is why it is redundant to say “monsoon season,” but every new Phoenix weathercaster — and many of the old ones — are given to saying it all too often.
These short poems, ADOT is hoping, will get us to think about what nasty consequences there are to being on the road during haboobs.
Usually we don’t see these things start to pop up until early July, after several weeks of hot, dry conditions under high pressure that serves to draw moist, cool air from the Gulf of Mexico into Arizona from the south and southeast (our usual weather pattern has systems moving in from the west.)
So we might as well start talking haboobs up now, so longtime residents and newcomers alike can beware and be safe.
As for me, in the interest of sheer entertainment (because I know that others will do a much better job of keeping you aware and safe), I have provided a few modest examples below, expanding on the concept beyond mere driving to so many other ways the Arizona monsoon and its dust storms affect us all. Ahem:
• Guys at the car wash
See the dark clouds approach
They go home early
• A/C on my roof
Braves haboobs to no avail
As dust clogs its coils
• Dirt forms patterns
On the white plaster bottom
My pool brush snaps
• Pricey contact lens
Cursing my optometrist
Dirt stings and rips it
• Front of New York Times
Had the storm that ate Phoenix
More mud for our rep
• Walking through haboobs
Makes couples look much better
in their dusty eyes
• Sweeping the driveway
Recycles the neighbors’ yard
on to the next block
• I need a filter
My engine no longer breathes
Sorry, we are out
• Lightning starts fires
No drops fall on the forest
Airplanes provide rain
• Asthmatics wheezing
Wondering why they moved here
To feel much better?
• Gape out the window
All at the office do it
No work accomplished
• Car window left open
Too far to go and close it
Gritty seats await
• Spring cleaning? No way!
In Arizona it’s best
to wait until fall
• I hate the monsoon
How close is San Diego?
All their rooms are full
• Mark J. Scarp is a columnist for the AFN and East Valley Tribune. Watch his “On the Mark” video commentary on eastvalleytribune.com. Reach him at mscarp1@cox.net.
