Arizona Monsoon Stats

Post by **Smjh1979** » Fri May 29, 2009 9:55 pm

The Arizona Monsoon (my 23rd overall) is a yearly event that runs mostly from July through September, although as of 2008, the eveny officially starts from June 15 through September 30.

Before 2008, the season started and ended with an average dewpoint of 55°F in Phoenix, and 54°F in Tucson for 3 straight days. Due to this being too confusing, it was dropped.

Normally, the bulk of the monsoons start just after July 4th, usually on the 7th through the 10th for the Prescott area, although they do start earlier down in the Southeast part of the state.

The monsoon season mostly comprises of daily thunderstorms, many being severe. It's nothing like out in Tornado Alley, but it still can get dangerous at times.

Flash Flooding, severe thunderstorms with large hail and wind, and Tornadoes do happen in Arizona.

Until mid-2009, submissions would grind to a halt whenever thunderstorms would occur, and I'd have to shut down this main computer, because none of our computers are on backup batteries. I got a portable hard drive, and moved all my website data to it. While the laptop isn't the best in the way of RAM, it will do in a pinch to work on submissions if the need warrants.

Sometimes the storms can last for a few minutes, to possibly 45-60 minutes or longer depending on how fast the storm is moving, or if there are more behind it.

As mentioned before, some severe weather does develop from time to time, and this year will mark the 11th year since our last severe weather incident in Prescott Valley.

On September 15, 1999, a total of three severe thunderstorms came through our area. The first 2 had strong winds and heavy rain, but didn't do much in the way of damage. The third one was to be remembered though...

To the NorthWest, was an area of white "fog". Naturally, I'd expect this to be just another storm, but it wasn't much in the way of "ordinary"...

Upon heading home, 1.75" to 2.00" hail (and even up to 2.50" in some areas of town) hit with a vengeance. Our home here has skylights, and they were damaged within seconds of the hailstorm beginning. However.... Shortly after damaging our area with hail, and 3" of rain within 45 minutes, the storm turned into a Tornado!

The Phoenix and Tucson areas get hit much harder than we do, although Phoenix does end up with a lot less rain than the Prescott area. The Phoenix area gets dust storms very often, and floods quite quickly.

Here are some links on what the Monsoon thunderstorms do in the Phoenix area...

http://www.azfamily.com/weather/severe- ... nsoon.html
http://phoenix.about.com/od/weather/a/monsoontrivia.htm
http://www.monsoonsafety.org/

More on the TV schedules will be posted on another topic, along with the potential forecast of Monsoon 2010.

As for me personally, the Monsoon period is my most favorite time of the year (the fall season is second, with the months from April 1 through June 30 as my least favorite) I really look forward to it, because of the rainy conditions. Temperatures fall quite rapidly when the rains come in, bringing temperatures from the 90s down to the 70s, and even the 60s at times. I like watching severe weather just to watch it. I'm not a big fan of severe weather hitting me personally, as I mentioned above with the 1999 hailstorm, but these things do happen quite often.

During one Monsoon day long time ago, there were about 50 or so Severe Thunderstorm Warnings throughout the state, beginning at 9 AM, and lasting well into the night.

Hopefully after an horrid 2009 Monsoon, a very wet Winter 2010, and cool Spring until mid-May, hopefully in my opinion, things stay on the positive side for rainy conditions this Summer.