The Opelousas courier., 1893-04-22
THE DESERT RAIN STORMS.
a LAND OF NIGH " cLoUDBURsTs
AND TokNADoEs.
when the Dry Lakes Are Filled
FLOODS That Sweep Away Miles
of Railway Tracks

~ " "Ai stiF Tie MIND OF a
hardy tourists as do those of
the ram storms that now and then deluxe
THIS arid region. For practical purposes
Tor the purpose of agriculture or the
amelloratlon OF the ard atmosp here-it
Is a rainless region. At intervals of
years general, or what the weather
sharps would call blanket rain storms.
do prevail, and then the desert becomes
thoroughly moistened and the brown,
hard baked sand disappears under the
most luxuriant, fragrant charming
flowers Imaginable. But in ordinary
years nothing of the kind is seen there.
And yet the tales of the downfall of i'm.
mense masses of water are to be heard
from every old Arab, and the physical
eVldenc of such downfalls are to be
seen on every hand in a journey across
the region. COne does not have too leave
the railroads to- see these evidences.
Just Aeast. of Mojave Station, in California,
the road runs for miles over q mass Of
what looks like yellow clay that has
baked and cracked in all directions
under the heat of the sun. There is not
a pebble in sight. It is a cracked sheet
of earth, that looks so much like the
bottom of the dried-out ponds to be
seen in the East that any tenderfoot
would recognize it, as the bottom of a
desert dry lake. The wayfarer who
drives across the desert finds these dry
lakes wherever there is a bow-shaped
valley between mountain ridges, and
sometimes on what seems to be level
mesas. That these dry lakes are occa-
sionally flooded need not be doubted,
for the water marks are visible.
But more impressive than the dry
lakes are the water marks wherever there
is a canon or even a depression leading
down from a mountain. In those canona
the tourist drives or rides along the dry
bed of a torrent invariably and it is in
such places as these that the guide tells
his stories Of desert rail storms. The
usual season for these rains is, ~curiously /
enough, the dry season, if one may be,
lieve them. While the sky is clear and
flaming hot a black cloud appears unex-
pectedly over some mountain crest, where
it sways about and increases in volume
until its bottom strikes the mountain top,
and then, as if pierced by q lancet, il
releases such a volume of water as would
pass belief did not one see the work
done 10y the floods in every canon.
In the valley of the Amargosa lives old
Cub Lee, a man VINO for nearly thirty
years has made the desert his home. His
house is one of the shanties formerly
used by the workmen who gathered
borax there. 1t stands under cliffs of
clay that are cut and slashed at frequent
intervals by deep assures running from
the river bed up toward the mountains
that rise on each side of the valley. One
day last winter he pointed to a mark
about three feet up on the perpeadicu-
lar walls of the assures on the Funeral
Mountain side, and said:
tsThe water came down so deep after
a cloudburst up yonder one day last
summer"
The crest of the Funeral Mountain
divide was thnty miles away. The near
est peak was Got less than ten, while a
| gradually rising mesa swept back from
the immediate valley of the river for five
or six miles to the foot of the nearest
peak. This storm had released its flood
on the crests of mountains from ten to
twenty miles away, the water had flowed
down the canons between those noun
talns, had poured ou5 over the mesa, had
filed the gulches and assures in its route,
and had at last rolled out through the
wide splits in the river bank a solid wave
three feet high.
elbow long did the food lasta" was
asked.
"Perhaps twenty minutes-not a half
hour, anyhow"
"Did it rain in the v~alley?"
"Not a dr~S."
As described by Lee, this cloud was
not very much like the tornado common
to the prairie region east of the Rockies
It was not q whirlins storm. nor did il
travel away from the place where it wa
formed, as a tornado does. 1t was sim
7 Div a great mass of black vapor constantly
afame with zigzag lightning. 1t seemed
to gather a tren endous bulk of watel
from a stratum of air above the noun
tain tops, to swell in volume as it gath
cred the water, and finally, waen
change of Conditions was created b.
touching the mountain tops, to releas.
its garnered floods instantly. The CLIQUE
was streaked with lightning until aftel
the mountains were embraced, and thel
the flashes disappeared and in a shor
time the cloud itself was disslpated
Lee did not notice any unusual Wln'
while the storm lasted.
The effects of these cloudbursts cal
best be realized by a consideration 9
some oil the authentic reports OF sue
storms, For instance a ~cloudburst i
the Humboldt Mountains, Nevada, O.
June 10, 1884, flooded the valleys abou
Rye Patch and badly damaged the Cen
trail Pacific tracks for thirty miles. @
the 10th of March the Same year a stretcl
Of the Atlantic and Pacific track 81
miles long was washed away just west 9
Daggett, CAL. and on the same da
another cloudburst near Yuma, Arizona
washed way about as much more of th
track there, Three days earlier, Marc
9TH, 1884, the streets of Florence, Ar
. coma, were flooded four feet deep by
cloudburst at the nearby mountains. III
effect of such e food among the house
of a mining camp may be imagined b
New Workers if they will consider VIVA
q tide four feet high would do If
swept through the shanties Ia the goa
district