more mud than I expected
Posted by Zonie on November 19, 2023 at 21:15:15
With the failed southeast monsoon, Arizona was again declared in a state of drought, with no substantial rain in our area since March. A fairly weak Pacific cold front managed to connect with the subtropical jet stream and so could give us some rain Friday night and Saturday morning.
I wasn't terribly optimistic. The official recording station said 0.14". The automatic rain gauges near Reach 11 said 0.35" I figured the thirsty ground would quickly swallow up so small a quantity.
On top of that, I wasn't feeling my best, having developed a head cold. Still, I wanted to take some exercise. I didn't feel like a full wallow, if that was even possible, but if I could stomp in some mud it would be worthwhile. The showers had at least cooled things a bit. Wednesday afternoon it got up to 89°F, but yesterday afternoon it only reached 75°F.
My fun started with the parking lot. The horse trailer area had a mud puddle as big as I'd ever seen there, and I waded right into it and found it extended into the brush, so I stomped the mud there and kicked open a drainage channel. I then used by boots to expand that drainage to a nearby arroyo.
I then headed west past the equestrian arena, finding a lot more mud on the way, even a boggy area that included part of the palo verde thicket that had grown in the area that had been torn up by construction crew in 2019.
I headed further west and wanted to find out if the mesquite thicket was muddy. It wasn't. All that organic matter had absorbed all the rain, but I had a lot of fun busting through brush. I headed back east along the south trail. That was heavy clay and there were impressive mud puddles in that, spanning the whole width of the trail. Unfortunately the other users deviated off trail to avoid it instead of splashing right through as I did.
I got back to my car finding it had only been a little over three hours. That was as much fun as I could take with the combination of the summer's inactivity, advancing age and my indisposition. I hope I'll be in better condition next storm.
As for all the mud from this one, I can only speculate that the core of the shower was more intense and that the rain gauges that received only 0.35" were on the periphery.