Sat 30 Jan 2010
Desert Deluge – Water Runs Wild in the Desert
Posted by jbross under Desert Living
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Written by Jeff
Non-GOTM pictures credited by hover notes – move cursor over image
It is one of those natural ironies that in the desert where water is at a premium, when it does rain significantly, the water wreaks havoc while running wild over the land. The operative word is OVER , as it does not seem that the water soaks in very much.
We learned early that the water could be cajoled, but not contained or completely thwarted. See the story of our wadi for one specific example.
From January 18, 2010 through January 23, 2010, we received almost five inches of rain. We barely made ten inches for the entire year last year and the part of the Sonoran desert in which we live usually receives between 10-12 inches of rain annually.
Here are some pictures of the streets near our house and what happens after a major rainfall.
The cactus don’t often get a chance to “go swimming,” but our golden barrel cactus enjoy a good drink once in a while!
The water has a path through our backyard. The water starts far away from our house and runs through the yard and then through other yards several blocks from us.
The five days of rain kept the ground so wet that fences fell down as the posts came loose in the mud.
Some fences had their posts uncovered and left practically bare.
As the water traveled through the neighborhood, it made its own riverbed when an easy path could not be readily “found.”
In the desert, we plow sand and mud instead of snow.
The mud covers parts of the street as the water carries it on to the road and it creates a berm which has to be dealt with later.
The dirt became so wet that our trellis laden with a heavy load of “snail vine” or “corkscrew vine” almost fell over so we tied it to a tree in our yard until the soil can dry out!
The dry riverbed we put in place after our first storm has worked well and changed a raging stream into a calm, slow-flowing stream. This leaves most of our sand and dirt in place.
As the rain falls, it creates puddles that serve as temporary watering holes for the animals. Within a day after the rain, these were gone!
Gardening on the Moon, www.gardeningonthemoon.com, originally published this post
