Rain Dance

by Nick Coons
Feb 19, 2003

It was amazing. I was driving through north Scottsdale this afternoon, and I saw grass. Not in people's front lawns, which are intentionally crushed stone anyway, but in natural desert landscape. Driving down Pima Road, looking at the untouched desert on the sides of the road that's normally made up of dust, rocks, and other forms of dirt, as well as several varieties of cactus, now had patches of miscellaneous grass.

I've seen the valley get some rain before, and I've seen various plants turn a little greener, but this is the first time I can remember seeing this much grass growing in the desert all on its own.

Many parts of the Phoenix metro area received more than an inch of rain. That is, in just a few short days, we received about 20% of the year's total rainfall. For those of you who have been following the drought over the past several years, you know that we really needed this. Our lakes have been drying up, and we've been practicing more harsh than usual water conservations measures.

It's going to take a lot more where this came from to help bring everything back up to normal and undo the damage that this drought has caused. It's time for everyone to do their best rain dance.