After a long, dry, and recently HOT year, it appears that the monsoon has begun!
Today felt like the first snow used to feel when I lived somewhere more North.
The only downside to the monsoon is that the storms often keep us from operating our sensitive equipment. Here’s a real-time lightning map from this afternoon, showing the storms advancing on Tucson from the South.
![We do NOT use this service for equipment safety. For information only.](https://xwcl.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/image-8-1024x541.png)
Lightning strikes shown as the colored dots, white most recent, getting dark with age. That’s Tucson in the middle of the image.
Thanks to Joseph’s hacking kills, our friendly lab-assistant Vizzy keeps us informed if there is lightning nearby.
![Everyone should have a Vizcacha in their lab at all times. Or at least living in the rafters.](https://xwcl.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/image.png)
We had to shutdown our fancy deformable mirrors and sensitive cameras this afternoon, but there’s always software to debug and documentation to update and tests to study for and referee comments to answer. So we enjoyed the thunder and were happy for the rain.
![Rainbows are pretty and all, but do you know how much of a fucking disaster atmospheric dispersion is for ExAO coronagraphy?](https://xwcl.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/rainbow.jpg)
The Sabino Rainbow made an appearance. I went for a blessedly cool run into the canyon, but didn’t find the end.
The song of the day is about the monsoon rains, and it also needs to be turned into a movie. It sounds like an intense adventure.