Shortly after I moved to Flagstaff, the region entered Monsoon season. With a little research I discovered that in hydrology, monsoonal rainfall is considered to be that which occurs in any region that receives the majority of its rain during a particular season. So while in terms of total precipitation the monsoons affecting the Indian Subcontinent dwarf the North American monsoon, Arizona still claims mid-July to early September as Monsoon Season. (I didn't do any in-depth research. Most of what you read here is shamelessly pulled from Wikipedia.com.)

Up until today, this season entailed a daily (usually afternoon) thunderstorm that could last from 20 minutes to many-hours-long rain that came down moderately hard to really hard. Typically this involved thunder and lightening (Jeff, you would have loved these). For the past six days, the thunderstorms have been noticeably absent. When I asked someone, I was told that the first half of the season was marked by the aforementioned weather patterns, a few days of calm, then erratic weather. Today would definitely classify as erratic. Weather.com informed me that there was a slight chance of rain. The slight chance materialized as a HUGE thunderstorm that dumped a lot of rain (4-5 inches in 20 minutes) and quite a bit of hail on Flagstaff. It came so fast that the existing drainage systems couldn't handle the load, so within 30 minutes many places were flooded. I have posted some video I shot. It is obviously amateur, and you should TURN DOWN YOUR VOLUME because I scream into the camera for some reason.

The area of campus that you will see is on a downhill slope, although it isn't the lowest point on campus. The layout is unclear from my commentary, but the water is flowing through the parking lot (from left screen to right screen) and into the building but not quickly enough to prevent the massive flooding that happened in the patio area and the parking lot itself. The area that is the main part of the video is supposed to be a concrete patio; however, it is covered in 1-3 feet of water. The river that you see at one point is water running down a sidewalk. The second video is of a van charging through the water... it made it out, but i'm sure that the water flowed in through the seals on the doors. Enjoy! (And through it all, RA training still went on.)

NOTE: I say where we are: DuBois center is on campus - it is named after a person who refused to use the French pronunciation, so I am forced to say "DooBoys." Near the beginning I can't finish my sentence... I'm supposed to say, "I'm worried about my car." Also, if you see when I pan around, the white piles are hail. The "tide" that I refer to are the gushes of water that simulate tidal activity in the parking lot. Before I took the video, we took a loop of the parking lot and at the far end the water came up about halfway on the doors. The driver and ownder of the SUV, Scott, LOVED the driving adventure. I'm just glad my little Honda wasn't involved.