re: #152 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

It was all knows as “The Great American Desert” until modern mechanical cultivation came along. And it is also a matter of distribution of rainfall. Even Arizona gets 10” or more of rain per year, distributed over the year, that could support lush grassland, but it all comes in the late-summer Monsoon season or in winter.

Our monsoon season in Maricopa County was for *shit* this year. Completely and utterly *for shit*. This chart is rainfall totals since 1990. In the far right column, labeled “Mon” is the rain we get in July, August and September. For this year, it was 0.46 inches. Last year it was 2.19 inches. This on top of record numbers of 110+ and 115+ days this year.

We haven’t gotten any decaying tropical storms or hurricanes from the Pacific this year either.