The sound of a thunderstorm in Phoenix, Arizona


The first time that I ever heard a thunderstorm was in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, don't get wrong, I grew up in Minneapolis, and there are plenty of thunderstorms (and snowstorms!) there. But it was like anything else that is so common, I never paid any attention to it, and never really heard it.

If you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you know that the coast never really gets thunderstorms. Sure, it rains, but not big thunder and lightning. Not like Minneapolis, and not like Phoenix. And of course I never noticed them, or the lack of them, in the years I lived in California.

But when I moved back to Phoenix I distinctly remember hearing the sound of a thunderstorm at night. And something that had been missing from my life, that I had never even thought about, came back into place.

Yes, Phoenix gets heavy rains in the summer. On the news they're called "Monsoons" - although originally the radio DJs said that as a joke. A real monsoon goes on for days and days, you know. They were kidding. In Phoenix, the sky darkens, the lightning strikes, the thunder rolls, and it rains hard. It seems to come out of nowhere, and also stops very suddenly.

I've been back in Phoenix for over twenty years now, and I always stop and listen to the thunder. I go outside and watch the rain. Someone once told me that it's the mark of a true Phoenician that a rainy day puts them in a good mood.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider supporting history adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more