Monsoon Madness
...and the re-appearance of our Red Velvet Mite friends
The most exciting part of last week’s monsoon rain in Tucson (in my opinion) wasn’t the 44° F drop in temperature in a few hours (from 114° to 70° F), the horizontal rain, the 50+ mph winds or getting 1” rain in 35 minutes. It was the emergence of 🥰 Red Velvet Mites the next morning!
Here’s a photo I took that day, also. The Red Velvet Mites are roughly 1/4” in size and I assume that’s their silk in the photo.
The first time I saw Red Velvet Mites in our yard in Tucson was in July 2009. I was walking around our yard the morning after a good (>0.3”) summer (“monsoon”) rain, looked down on the ground and saw this: 🔴—a bright red dot! I thought, “WOW! What is THAT?” and bent down to investigate further, discovering the dot was an arachnid! It seemed amazing to me that a living being is that bright red and looks so much like velvet!
Every year since then, the morning after the first good summer rain, I’ve looked for (and counted) Red Velvet Mites in our yard. In my Perpetual Journal art above I noted that I saw 50+ Red Velvet Mites last week. The most I’ve counted since 2009 was 100+ on July 6, 2014.
Vintage 😉 Paula Art with a Special Guest!
A few years ago I carried my first drawing of a Red Velvet Mite out into our yard and photographed it on the ground with a Special Guest—a live Red Velvet Mite (that just happened to crawl onto my drawing)! The live version was obviously checking out my rendition of one of its clan and I’m pretty sure it gave me an 8-legs-up rating! 😉 As you see this “vintage” art is from 2016 and is from my very first sketchbook! 😃
If you really want to geek out on Red Velvet Mites, check out Big, bad, and red: Giant velvet mite defenses and life strategies (Trombidiformes: Trombidiidae: Dinothrombium) by the late Justin Schmidt. He reported what I’ve observed as well: “Most emergences of velvet mites to the soil surface occurred during the month of July or in late June and coincided with the first major rainfall of the summer season.”
Monsoon Madness
We’ve all seen the headlines about worldwide record heat this summer (for both land and ocean temperatures), record-setting levels of heat-related illnesses and deaths, immense wildfires in Canada, the huge reduction of Antarctic Sea Ice, and other weather news attributed to climate change.
Here in Tucson (in the Sonoran Desert), I’ve felt that our first good summer rain came late this year. It’s also seemed to me like we’ve had an unusually long streak of very hot days (over 105° F and even over 110° F). Being the citizen scientist that I am, I decided to look at hard data and not just assume my impressions were correct.
I analyzed 17 years of rain and temperature data collected from our weather station in our Tucson yard, thanks to ❤️ Hubby providing me with 17 years of data. Here’s what I determined:
💧 Rain
In over 70% of the past 17 years, our first “good” rain (≥0.30”) occurred earlier than 2023’s date of July 17. So while 2023’s first rain date is later than average, it’s not totally unprecedented.
🌡️ Temperature
Temperature, however, is a different story! For the past 17 years (2023 included, to date), we’ve never had anywhere near as many days in a row of temperatures ≥ 105° F as we’ve had in 2023. As of Wednesday, July 26, 2023 we’ve had a 33-day streak of ≥ 105° F days at our house. The longest streak prior to this was 22 days in a row, in only 1 of the past 17 years.
We’ve also never had as many days in a row of temperatures ≥ 110° F as we’ve had in 2023. As of Wednesday, July 26, 2023, we’ve had a 10-day streak of ≥ 110° F days at our house. The longest streak prior to this was 5 days in a row in only 2 of the past 17 years.
Also on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, the National Weather Service in Tucson reported this was a “Record setting day for Tucson with the 40th straight day of triple digit high temperatures, breaking the old record of 39 days first set in 1987 and later tied in 2005 & 2013. The current forecast takes the streak to 45 days thru July 30th.”
&%#$!
No wonder I feel like a wilted flower (and I’m privileged to have air-conditioning and drink a lot of water!). After experiencing these hot temperature streaks first hand, these thoughts have been very loud in my head:
This is climate change.
This is not an anomaly.
This is the first time I’ve seen such an obvious example of climate change in my own backyard.
I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, nor do I want to sweep climate change under the carpet. Each of us must take action (more than just turning out the lights when we leave rooms!). Since my intent with this blog & email newsletter is to add positivity to your day, here are some of the latest ideas for how each of us as individuals can take positive action to help slow climate change. Please check these out—you may find some new ideas here!