HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

At home in Payson had a half inch of rain and then another storm with a quarter inch of rain the other day.

A few drops here in Eagar, but I think the higher peaks got more. Hopefully we will do all right with the next wave of moisture coming in, mainly on Saturday.

Lorena took a sharp left—which wasn't in the forecast models—and the subsequent flood watches, excessive rainfall, and tornadoes just never materialized.

No word if you can still get sandbags at the local fire station.

@chumley
You're probably too young, but for those of us who grew up in the 80s, "Lorena took a sharp left..." has potential for a good joke.

@Grimey Apparently not all of my attempts at mixing humor land. Interestingly, I learned recently that even the kids these days are aware of it. Some historical events live in infamy.

@chumley
Ah Ok then... how about:

"Lorena cut sharply from her expected path, leaving only a small reminder that she was there. For those affected, however, the scars will remain forever."

Just a first draft, could use some polishing for sure...

Yeah, depressing watching the 60-90% chance of rain to pretty much " maybe scattered thunderstorms" like any generic monsoon forecast.

@RedRoxx44
There is a 60-90% chance I can predict local weather more accurately by looking out of my windows.

@chumley
Let’s hope Tonto ending fire restrictions was not based on expected precip totals from Lorena.

Edit: This was a pretty good swing and miss for the weather guys, I think the last time we had this big of a dud was for another mythical desert hurricane if I remember.

Last seen bobbing out to sea.

In other news, the forecast for the Mogollon Rim is still accurate. Currently sitting in the camper reading The Emerald Mile while nature waters the plants and feeds the starving lakes.

Calendars, dew points, and dripping ac condensers be damned. The weak 2025 monsoon is over.

Dry and "cooler" air is on the way.

We can hope for the drippings from pacific tropical storms, but that's it. It's over. Go home.

All we can hope.for now is the return of what used to be normal winter storms around Thanksgiving and New Year's that bring snowpack to the mountains and significant precipitation to the deserts. Something that didn't happen at all last year.

Right, because "Arizona" is only located in the Valley of the Sun. The fact that the entire western side of the state got slammed, damaged, flashflooded, power out, trees downed, record rainfall, etc. etc., doesn't matter, because Kingman, Yuma, Bullhead and Parker are actually part of California, dontcha know.

@azbackpackr Yuma had an exceptional summer. Which doesn't change the very obvious fact that Arizona as a whole had a disappointing monsoon.

azbackpackr wrote:because Kingman, Yuma, Bullhead and Parker are actually part of California, dontcha know.

Odd, I always thought they were in some weird black hole separated from the rest of the world completely, if I'm being honest. That could be why they got more weather than the rest of us... just how alternate dimensions work, I think.

It has been a weird summer, though. It "felt" milder to me than most recent ones but if you look at the records, I think it was the 4th warmest or something like that. I've only been here since 2018 so it's been mostly hotter than "normal" but I do wonder how much of the records are because of the official temps being at Sky Harbor. I'll have to dig around Deer Valley airports data to see how it compares over the years I guess since it's mostly away from the heat island (and I live next to, so it will completely validate my opinions obviously)

@xsproutx The much higher low temperatures (and thus the higher average) at PHX is definitely influenced by paving over hundreds of square miles of desert in the valley. I think that even DVT and IWA readings reflect this, though probably to a somewhat lesser extent being on the outskirts.

The NWS website has temperature and precipitation graphs for sites less impacted by the effects of the UHI and provide a better representation of the true changes over time. They are set to compare to the current 30-year "normal" (1991-2020), but you can still view the data from decades before that and see how much lower the temps were overall.

@xsproutx
I am kind of wondering the same thing. At least for the days I have been here, the summer has felt milder in comparison to last year. But then I turn on the weather and they are like no, it’s as hot as it’s ever been, lol. I coach high school cross country and I can say last year we only ran two meets on sub 100 degree days. The state meet in November and a morning invite the second week of OCT. This year we ran our first meet on a cloudy 97 degree day over two weeks ago now and have regularly been running in temps in the low to mid 80s in the morning. It’s all anecdotal, but we could not buy a sub 90 degree morning last year and most mornings I’d say 91-93 was the norm. So for me, it’s def been a cooler summer and it’s shaping up to be a far cooler late summer, early fall. I am sure the stats at Sky Harbor will say otherwise, but I am not going to let their data get in the way of me perceiving the weather to be “cooler” this year, lol.

@FOTG
Last year was just so insanely hot, that being more than 2.5° cooler this year seems so much better (for real, it WAS much better!) ... but we are so jaded that we don't even realize that it's still so much hotter than historical averages.

Opening all these graphs and quickly flipping from one to the next is somewhat striking visually.

For southern az specifically
https://www.weather.gov/twc/monsoon