It does rain in Albuquerque!!!

Well, I have had my first experience with NM rain!  It is more of a drizzle right now, but Ms. Dee says in the summer, they have a 'monsoon' season.  A monsoon is a very heavy rain, really big down falls in a short period of time. 

In Albuquerque, the soil isn't as rich as it is in NJ.  What happens when it rains here is that the soil doesn't hold onto the water because it is more like a sand, similar to the sand on the beaches that you may visit in NJ.  Because the water isn't absorbed into the soil, it flows over the top of it and causes flooding very easily. 

Nature has permitted an easy way to bring all that extra water to the Rio Grand River, this is done by arroyos.   An arroyo, a Spanish word translated as brook is usually a dry river, creek or stream bed that temporarily or seasonally fills and flows after rain. 

In Albuquerque, many of the natural arroyos have been turned into 'cement' arroyos.  Now, these arroyos look just like a cement road but they are not to be played in.  It can rain in the mountains and be sunny in the valley and a flood can still occur in the valley.

You can see in the picture below how much water can flow at one time.  This is one of the bigger arroyos, there are many small ones.  You can probably see how the water is flowing down from the mountains where it is raining, but not raining where this picture was taken.  The road is dry and so are the cars!

This is a picture of a smaller arroyo.  And you can probably see how fast the water is still flowing in this arroyo too!

If you ever go to the southwest or visit an area where they have arroyos, be safe and stay out of them completely.

Here are some pictures of the Rio Grande River, these were downloaded off the web because I wanted you to see it.  But I'll be visiting there next week when MacRae, Fletcher, IslaRose and Devon are on Winter Break (yea!).

This is a beautiful picture of the Rio Grande and the sky - don't you think?

Here are a couple of fun pictures of the Rio Grande River during the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, I'll share more on this later, but just as some information - there can be as many as 700 Hot Air Balloons in the sky at one time.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures and that you will be safe if you ever visit an area with arroyos!