WOW....what a storm.  I am still putting my money on a funnel cloud somewhere by us tonight.  I work just North of Queen Creek and tonight I experienced on of the worst storms I have encountered since 1989 whilst living in Georgia.  I cannot even begin to put the events of tonight into as good a picture as I'd like to but here's a bit of what happened.
 I walked into work at around 9:25 pm tonight with lightning following right behind me.  No big deal...storms like that fizzle out all the time.  Not tonight.  Within 15 minutes of me hitting my break area ( an explosion/shrapnel proof facility ) a huge dust storm kicked up obliterating the rest of the plant.  Within minutes the winds picked up to an amazing force and started cracking and throwing down palo verde trees all around us.  Being in the well defended smoke area, my coworkers and I were fairly safe so we all popped on our safety glasses and settled in.  The list of things that DIDN'T fly by us is much shorter than the list of things that did.  We lost no fewer than twenty trees on site and one of those flew across the front parking lot and landed on MY JEEP!!! Only scratches, thank God...I was able to retrieve my vehicle later than night by just pulling out from under the tree.  Whew.
 Most of the things that werent tied down on the South end of the plant are now on the North end of the plant and we have a HUGE facility approximately 1 mile square.
 After the immense storm many parts of the plant couldn't get their power on line so we had to chill for a while.  My friend Michelle and I spent some time picking up VERY disoriented birds and putting them back on dry land.  Many birds had settled in for the night and were caught quite by suprise by the storm. They could be found laying all over the plant, quite dazed and confused.  We just walked right up to them and were handling them with almost NO FUSS.  Crazy.
 In the fields adjacent to our plant the irrigation hose and wheel systems were relocated to Ellsworth Road.  ALL OF THEM. Lierally. Ellsworth was a disaster for hours and was just cleaned up before I left work tonight...though the route further south of me that leads to the town of Queen Creek was still roped off.
 I have noticed, by rereading this post that I can do no justice to the whammy that socked us tonight.  Suffice it to say that it was AWESOME...though the deep rumbling freight train sound that passed not far away was a bit too close for comfort.  I've been through too many tornados and I avoid them whenever possible.  Yet another reason to live in AZ, they are few and far between.
 

... Yeah bro, I just got home from NYC yesterday evening. I grilled some steaks with my brother and his kids and he was commenting that it had been a really weak monsoon season this year. Jokingly I said, they were waiting for me to come home.

... And WOW is right, downed trees and even a couple power lines near me. Quite a show it was all right. According to this real-time radar loop, it looks highly likely again tonight.

... Matter of fact a friend of mine is throwing a huge party tonight and we may have to change the theme to a "Hurricane Party"

... w00t!

 Glad to see you are back!!!!!!!!

We had a little bit of wind and rain last night here in South Eastern Mesa last night too but thankfully nothing like what you experienced. Glad nobody was hurt.

No earth quakes and nearly no tornados in AZ and about eight months of perfect weather and three to four months of baking your tail off with occasional monsoons.

All in all it’s a good trade off.

Desertmoon- I also lived in Georgia (Woodstock). Every year in June like clockwork,tornados thru tornado ally. I was lucky, they always came in above my house taking out treetops, then touched down 1/2 mile away (always in the same trailer park). Don,t miss all that one damn bit.

Here near Mesa Dr. and Southern we keep getting cheated.

sucks. D.

North Phoenix nea PV mall.  We got cheated too.

anybody get some rain last night?  We had a nice but all to brief rain in East Mesa

I live in the Gilbert/Chandler area and we received alot of rain last night. I love it when it rains in Arizona.

I live in queen Creek but thankfully I wasn't their for the 2 1/2 day power outage. 3 houses on my streets had their garage doors crumple. A couple guys I know had their roofs torn actually off (seems to have only happened to 2 story houses.) Luckly I live in the section or Johnson Ranch that had power only after about 24 hours. Everyone I know lost power for about 2 1/2 days. What a freak storm.

Cheated on Sossaman and University in far eastern Mesa...

BTW, how is Queen Creek?  I'm considering moving further east than I am right now.

Mike

Queen Creek is nice however living that far out gets old very fast. However in anouth 6 months or so they will have the Fry's Marketplace on hunt highway. The closest supermarket is about 14 miles away. The prices on houses are stil very reasonable. QC is about 20 miles from the 60 and about 20 miles from Chandler. Driving to Phoenix is a pain in the ass. I like living out their because I can actually look up at night and see stars. Their is also lots of places to go shooting out in the desertif you have a truck. If you want to know anything else just IM me.