For most of the week Arizona has been seeing a lot of rain and wind. Nothing too bad and the rain was much welcomed. From the start of the week though the weather forecasters had been warning us that the final system to move in on Thursday was going to be a big one, with lots of rain and wind. For the most part it was calm on Thursday, some periods of heavy rain but nothing too bad. However, late Thursday afternoon the wind picked up, peak gusts in my area were recorded at around 43 MPH at Hendrix Jr High School, no match for these desert trees sitting in rain soak ground.

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Two of three trees downed by the strong winds next to my building.

The owner of the silver truck really lucked out.

This looks a lot worse than it really was. Crews managed to get the truck unburied the next morning. There were a couple minor dents and some scratches on the side of the cab. Had that tree fallen a couple more inches over would have been a much different story.

This third tree I didn’t even know about as I could not see this one from my balcony. It wasn’t until I went to get pictures of the buried truck did I discover this one. You can see in this picture some of the roots from the tree that use to be on the corner of the building.

This photo shows just how powerful the winds were. The ‘third tree’ is off to the right.