As many of you know I’m obsessed with gold, but I have another obsession, and that is with the weather and how it relates to putting more gold in my poke.

It’s monsoon season in the Bradshaw mountains, the monsoons begin when the humidity and due point levels reach 50 to 52%. But over the last few weeks what appears to be monsoons are actually somthing else.

I’ve been tracking a low pressure system for about 11 days, it has been moving slowly, up from the deserts of Mexico finally stalling out 3 days ago over southern Utah. During this time the rain in the northern Bradshaws has been very hit or miss.

It began moving to the south west early Tuesday morning and as a result nearly the entire Bradshaw range has seen signifigant rainfall overnight, see the picture below.

Now what does this have to do with the monsoons? Well the normal monsoon rains form on the South west side of the Bradshaws, by the time they reach the northern Bradshaws we have very good rain totals averaging from 1-3 inches almost daily.

A typical monsoon day in the northern Bradshaws goes like this, clouds begin to form to the south west, by 3 PM the rains begin, by 6 PM the rains have stopped, the temperature is in the 70’s and theres a few hours to go panning before dark.

For the last 2 weeks the clouds are out of the south east, there is little or no rain in the northern Bradshaws, and the temperatures remain in the 90’s,all this adds up to little or no gold in my poke.

What this low pressure system is doing is funneling heat from the deserts of Mexico, and as such the humidity levels have been ranging from 18 to 60%, therefore our normal daily rainfall is not happening, with the exception of a few deep pools, all of Lynx creek and the surrounding tributaries have gone completely dry.

As I said earlier, the system has begun moving to the south west and is centered over the northern Bradshaws.

As the system moves toward the Baja of California we may see more rain drawn up from the Pacific, if it keeps moving at its present speed we SHOULD see a return to the normal monsoon paterns in about a week.

J.K.Lyon