Flash flood watches stretched from Utah to California on Friday and parts of Joshua Tree National Park in the Golden State were closed as a precaution against any flooding caused by Tropical Storm Hilary.
Firefighters slowly were making progress on containing the York Fire in Mojave National Preserve in California, although a drying trend with higher daily temperatures was returning to the area.
Arrival of monsoonal weather brought some help to firefighters battling the York Fire in Mojave National Preserve, as the higher humidity helped slow the fire's progress as containment lines were scratched around nearly a quarter of the blaze.
High winds and hot temperatures were combining to drive the York Fire, a nearly 80,000-acre blaze ignited in Mojave National Preserve in California that was being fought by nearly 300 firefighters Monday.
A controversial pipe to pull billions of gallons of groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert in California has been blocked by a federal judge, who ruled the review of the project by the Bureau of Land Management "was a decision not to engage in review."
This summer's monsoonal deluges have so impacted roads through Mojave National Preserve that the National Park Service warns you not to use GPS technology to plan your trip through the preserve, as you could just end up stuck on a closed road, as the drive in the photo above did.
Flash floods washed across Mojave National Preserve in California on Friday and again forced closure of the preserve's roads. One motorist who ignored the road closures saw their car trapped in the resulting quagmire.
Mojave National Preserve, which saw torrential rains bury many of its roads under debris, opened some of the routes Friday while others with more substantial damage remained closed.