HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

It's been pretty warm in NJ and NY so far this summer. WNBC said it was the first July since 1944 without a single daily high below 80F in NYC. They also just finished the longest string of days over 90F since 2013. It was the second long string of the month and another one is coming this week. It's also been dry. We've been on water use restrictions for a few weeks, which will likely continue at least to October.

@SpiderLegs I’ve noticed that too, with storms hitting hard close to Oracle and Pusch Ridge the past couple of weeks. I live over by El Conquistador, close to Oracle.

The people who get excited about such things are getting excited. If it doesn't actually happen, it's gonna put one of them in the hospital again like last week. For now, it looks like a surge of moisture will push into the state late this week and weekend. Current forecasts call for over 1.5" for about 2/3rds of the state with some large swaths of 2"-3" totals. Of course individual storms have the ability to produce higher amounts locally.

You can see where I live by the tiny light blue dot showing the lowest forecast amount in central Arizona.

chumley wrote:Current forecasts call for over 1.5" for about 2/3rds of the state with some large swaths of 2"-3" totals.

That's more than NJ is likely to get in the next couple weeks. It's been a dry summer.

chumley wrote:it's gonna put one of them in the hospital again like last week

I hope so, more water for the border hiking and green hill enjoyment! Woohoo--if it pans out Nogales area forecast excess of 3 inches of rain for this weekend and highs into the 70's!!

We've had almost a full foot of sun up here today. I'm not sure we can make it out to hike.

LosDosSloFolks wrote: ↑Aug 18 2022 1:20 pm We've had almost a full foot of sun up here today. I'm not sure we can make it out to hike.

I bet you'll have even more by mid-afternoon.

According to the National Weather Service in Flagstaff, rainfall totals for this summer's monsoons have been well above average in northern Arizona:

My average yesterday was one and a two thirds of a inch!
Power Road & Germann in Queen Creek.....

Monday wrote:Current forecasts call for...

The Friday-Sunday totals are in ... and while there were some very impressive totals in select locations, all-in-all, most areas fell well below the early models.

In the attached map, anything that's yellow is under 1" for the 3-day totals. Green is under 0.5"
The reds are over 1.75" and the purples and blues reach up into 4" and 5".

As seems to be the case frequently, the official measurement stations at the PHX and TUC airports came up extra lame. PHX with .08" and TUC with .33" -- both a far cry from the hyped models earlier in the week.

One result is that despite internet farce claims, clear skies prevented Gila Bend from being destroyed and there was no loss of life. Which I think is probably good.

Don't know about the radar; this time of year I see rain I head south and I usually have plenty of water to play in.

@chumley
My gauge (near the 101/Cave Creek) showed a little over 1 1/2 and that was pretty much from one storm that came through twice on Aug 19th.

I did learn either I can't read radar very well or it isn't as accurate as I thot.

@tibber
Wow; I have nearly an inch more than you and can't be too far away (Deer Valley/Cave Creek)!

@chumley
The Gila River apparently got Duncan tho. Wrong desolate AZ town.

It's been bone dry in NJ for much of the summer, but it changed in a hurry today. Just down the road from me in Mt. Olive, they got 5.6" of rain in about two hours. We got somewhat less, but still a lot. Big swaths of South Jersey got up to 6.6" in the same interval. As in the Southwest (especially Texas today), after such a long dry spell, absorption was low and runoff was high.

@chumley
Whaaaat, wildly inaccurate weather models?? And thanks for posting up these summaries, I find the NOAA website to be unnavigable.

@toddak
NOAA is terrible at a lot of things -- including forecasting the weather, sometimes.

chumley wrote: ↑Aug 22 2022 3:47 pm @toddak
NOAA is terrible at a lot of things -- including forecasting the weather, sometimes.

However, as I never tire of pointing out, the weather in AZ appears inherently much less predictable than in many other areas. That must be well enough established to have been studied and explained. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go look for it. It's just not as captivating as which group of people were attacking which other group of people seven hundred years ago and why.

I dunno, watching the water flow move thru in the Gila if I were downstream of Coolidge Dam might be squirming a bit right now.