How long does monsoon season last in arizona

According to the U. Now, just 8. Latest drought monitor shows substantial improvement in the D3 extreme and D4 exceptional categories. It occurred in multiple pulses and water just started to runoff everywhere. Just because the past couple of years have been dry, does not necessarily mean next year will be, too.

Arizona tends to experience "clusters of years" with high precipitation levels and those with low precipitation levels like the past two years. Hodges referenced a four year stretch between and , and another period in , when Arizona experienced above-normal precipitation levels during monsoon season, and several consecutive dry years in the early s. Connecting weather events or even seasons to climate change is difficult, but the National Weather Service expects "summers will gradually become warmer," Hodges said.

Compared with the last two dry seasons, monsoons were very active this year with severe weather, wind damage, hail, dust and flash flooding, Percha said. In there was only 1 inch of rain and 1. According to Percha, areas north and east of Phoenix in higher terrain and foothills received the most rain.

Despite the benefits to the reservoirs, monsoon rains did not help the Colorado River, which heavily relies on winter precipitation. Reach breaking news reporter MacKenzie Brower at mackenzie. Click here for a full breakdown of last year's monsoon. Once again, temperatures are likely to be hotter than average. So, get ready for lots of degree days. The Climate Prediction Center puts most of Arizona under equal chances for above-normal, below-normal, or near-normal rainfall. In other words, we'll just have to wait and see.

Additionally, there's a good chance of a below-normal Eastern Pacific hurricane season which means our potential to tap into moisture from remnant tropical systems near the Baja Peninsula is looking lower than normal. But, as we've seen in years past, all it really takes is one or two good tropical systems to make up for an entire monsoon's worth of rain. So, again, we'll just have to wait and see how things develop this year.