Desert Rain (start humming now)

So maybe it's because I haven't seen rain since June in New Mexico, or maybe it's just the expectation of being in the Arabian desert, but when it rained the other day, I had to go out and watch. For a guy who grew up in a high desert climate, there is something funny about how fascinating the desert rain was.

The funny part about it was that during the morning and afternoon, it smelled and looked like it was going to rain. One of my local counterparts, in response to the question "Is it going to rain today?" responded "Only God knows." Within a few minutes, he got a cell phone call from an astonished friend telling him that it was raining in the capital. He laughed and said "It's raining in Riyadh."

More interesting than the quantity of rainfall was how dark it was in the late afternoon.

So here is the ominous cloud cover,


And here is the early evening downpour.

Not exactly magazine covers, but you get the idea. More to come...