Are You Ready for Monsoon Storms?
Here in Arizona, temperatures say it’s time to be indoors to enjoy your beautiful home, or perhaps to plan your next home remodeling project to make it your dream home! But it also signals that monsoon season is here, which means the hot and dry weeks will help set up rainfall. (And if you hear thunder, that’s another reason to stay indoors for safety!) If you watch the weather, a low pressure system over the Baja California region brings in moisture from the ocean and a high pressure over Texas creates the wind pattern that allows moisture to release over our state.
Monsoons definitely bring a variety of variables in the day. It can start out sunny and clear, and then a storm rolls in, bringing dangers of blowing dust, reduced driving visibility, lightning strikes, power outages, and flash flooding. There can be torrential rainfall in one part of the valley while another part remains without precipitation. Here are some tips to be prepared.
Power Surges
It is important to protect your appliances and electronic devices from power surges that comes from an electrical storm. While a power strip with surge protection can help with a low-level surge, there is an important limitation: many surge protectors can absorb only so much energy, and they may continue to look and function normally even after their surge-protection capability has been depleted. That means the next surge could pass directly through to the electronics plugged into it, potentially causing irreparable damage. For the best protection, consider having a whole-house surge protector installed at your electrical panel. It provides a first line of defense against surges throughout your home, protecting appliances and electronics whether they are plugged into a power strip or directly into an outlet. Ask a licensed electrician about what they recommend and have them install it. Click here for more tips for being safe in a lightning storm.
Power Outages
Utility companies are quick to respond to restore power, but if there has been a lot of damage, it can take a while. You may be able to sign up for loss of service/service restored alerts for your area, which is helpful, especially if you are not at home.
Here are some tips to deal with loss of electricity:
Do your best to keep your freezer full, even if it is with plastic jugs of frozen water. It will help it run more efficiently and retain cold temperatures.
Do not open your freezer when the power is out.
Beforehand, you may want to freeze a small glass of water and then place a coin at the top. Store it inside the freezer. It may help indicate a power loss when the ice melts and the coin sinks. There are variables affecting its accuracy, but if the coin is more than halfway down, the edibility of meat may be questionable.
You may want to have a charged generator as a backup to keep your food cold.
Gustnado
Tornadoes are rare in Arizona and are more likely to occur in the fall. However, a monsoon can spawn a gustnado, which is a funnel cloud that looks like a tornado. Winds at the leading edge of a storm can form a vortex and whip up dust and debris that soon dissipates without causing much damage. That’s good to know you can keep calm if you see one!
Rainfall
We all would like cooling rain to freshen the air and water our yards. Did you ever wonder why big rainstorms build up and just rain on the outskirts of the cities? Man-made surfaces such as concrete and asphalt create a heat island that builds up and releases heat that rises and acts as a block for the clouds. With that barrier, the water vapor condenses, gets heavy and falls before reaching urban areas. Sometimes you can even see rain falling, but because of the rising heat, a lot of it evaporates before it reaches the ground!
If you would like to do your part to help cool the city environment and enjoy the benefits of rain, promote the planting of trees in parking lots! Just as it is cooler being in the shade, it also lessens the amount of heat absorbed by hard surfaces and released throughout the day and night. Not only do trees help remove air pollutants and provide oxygen, but all the people who get to park in the shade greatly appreciate it!
And Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. Mark 4:39
