It's a Monsoon Storm...FINALLY!

We had the most WICKED monsoon storm today!  As I was getting ready to leave work, someone mentioned how dark and cloudy it was outside and that the wind was blowing like crazy.  I'd gotten a weather warning email just before I left and knew there was a storm just about to blow in, but I had NO idea that it would be like this!

I started heading out of the building and just as I walked outside, it started to pour.  Literally.  In the 200 feet to my truck, I got drenched.  My hair was a sopping wet mess.  I could have won a wet t-shirt contest!  This is a little video of the rain once I got inside the truck...

So, after recording the little video, I started to pull out of our parking lot and as I was sitting at the light waiting to get on the freeway, this is what I encountered.  Check out how you can't see past the intersection and then how as the cars start to move, the sheets of rain come flying in on the left side...

So, I motored onto the freeway and very quickly was wishing I'd waited out the storm at work or off the side of the road. (yeah...I know...should I really have been taking a video while trying to drive in this?)...

After about 6 miles of going about 20 miles an hour and barely being able to see past the front end of my truck, I finally made it past the major portion of that leg of the storm and was able to drive pretty normally.  I drove the rest of the way to Surprise and decided to stop at Lowe's and pick up the tile for the Super Saturday project I'll be cutting vinyl for.  After struggling to lift two wet, heavy boxes of tile out of a wet cart and into my truck, I headed the rest of the way home...only to have to deal with this...

It's amazing that even after all these years of being told not to be a stupid motorist and drive in deep water, that people whose cars are obviously too low to do so, still do.  This chickadee should have been in the far left lane, but she insisted in driving in the center lane in front of me.  I so badly wanted to go over to the right lane and fly past her and splash all the water up on her, but that wasn't very kind or nice, so I didn't.  I just stayed behind her in case I had to push her out of a deep spot.

I was pretty glad when I finally made it home.  There was an actual confirmed tornado in Tonopah - about 40 miles away.  That's a little too close for comfort...especially since I was just in a tornado warning last week!