The first major monsoon storm to hit the Tucson metro area Monday evening produced a microburst that damaged homes and toppled power poles in the Catalina Foothills.

“There was definitely a microburst that happened in the Catalina Foothills and it caused a lot of the damage,” said Kevin Strongman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tucson. “A microburst is basically a sudden collapse of the storm’s core, pushing all the cold air and winds from 30,000 feet all the way down.”

More than 30 electrical poles were knocked down as a result of the storm, Tucson Electric Power said. Some 20,000 customers lost power across the metro area and about 5,000 still had none late Tuesday morning, the utility said.

The storm dropped .45 inches of rain at Tucson International Airport. And 1.72 inches of rain was recorded near East Sunrise Drive and North Swan Road. Both areas reported hail.

Tucson International Airport recorded a 63 mph wind gust. Marana Regional Airport reported a 60 mph winds gust.

The storm also dropped the temperature in Tucson from 111 degrees at 3:30 p.m. to 77 degrees at 5:48 p.m.

This video, filmed at Uptown Burger near East Skyline Drive and North Campbell Avenue, shows the powerful monsoon storm that swept through Tucson on July 17. Video courtesy of David Henley.

But it was the foothills where the storm hit hardest.

“We lost two huge mesquite trees — about 50 feet tall, an oak tree about 30 feet tall [and] several palo verde trees,” Catalina Foothills resident Valerie Van Norman said in an email to the Arizona Daily Star. “It is going to cost a fortune to clean it all up.”

Catalina Foothills resident Don Mills said the storm was one of the worst he’s experienced since moving to Tucson.

“[This was] probably one of the worst monsoon storms I’ve seen since moving here in 2007. It reminded me of some of the hurricanes that we lived through down in the gulf coast of Florida and Alabama,” Mills said.

“The wind was so strong that it knocked our pergola off its foundation and moved it about 8 feet … it weighs over 500 pounds.”

Mills and his wife, Pam, were spared of property damages for the most part despite not having power for nearly 12 hours. But one of their dogs died due the storm’s aftermath.

“The worst part of it was the fact that we lost our dog. He fell in the pool and drowned,” Mills said. “My wife went outside with him to do his business and he slipped in. We had a portable fence around the pool that got blown in, he got tangled up in the mesh and that’s what unfortunately got him trapped.”

“We’ve had him for nine years,” Mills said. “He was a rescue, he was 13 years old.”

Bill Buckmaster, a prominent longtime local radio broadcaster and foothills resident who experienced the microburst, said it is something he has not experienced in Tucson before.

“We have a stone bridge that leads out to our home that had boulders on it, making it impassible,” he said. “The flood waters came across the bridge like I’ve never seen at our property.”

“I have been in hurricanes, took a direct hit on the island of St. Martin in 1996, this was a hurricane. The force, the winds were hurricane strength. The rain gauge unfortunately broke after about three inches at our place. I thought we were going to lose the roof,” Buckmaster said.

“The interesting part of this storm, there was only like two bolts of lightning and thunder before it moved in, then it was 40 minutes of the most intense weather I have ever seen in 35 years in Tucson …. The temperature went from 113 to 67 degrees at our house and the hail did not melt for three hours.”

The first storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service came about 1:50 p.m. for Santa Cruz County. There, winds whipped up to 60 mph and produced penny-sized hail in some areas.

That storm cell eventually worked its way up to Tucson and through Marana.

The cell eventually continued north along the I-10 corridor before dying down outside of Chandler.

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