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While hiking at night, I have observed the rhino beetles are out and about around sunup and the moths are also quite busy as well. If the cicada's start singing the monsoons should make their apearance.

Nighthiker wrote:If the cicada's start singing the monsoons should make their apearance.

This morning, sitting out in the backyard (desertified) drinking coffee and reading the paper, the cicada's started up about 10 a.m. Loud and sustained.

We are still almost two weeks away from predicted first rain, though. Here in Tucson, it seems that the Fourth of July is the magic day for monsoon start.

dd

I just hope there is some rain with the lighting.

Not to be negative, but this is an El Nino year, which historically means the monsoon season ends early.
Also, with lack of moisture in the air, the monsoon storms are bad news.
We need about a foot of rain spread out over 2 months to get anywhere close to normal again.
I'm normally an optimist, but I can't see anything good coming anytime soon. What we really need is a nice big hurricane to come up from the gulf and bring us water.

As much as I hate to agree on the particular scenario - I do. All indications for the long term are pointing to a mighty dissappointing Monsoon season. ossibly good if you like lightning shows (which, in current conditions cause other more serious problems) but other than that - I just see a lot of dust in the forecast.

Gonna be a long summer.

Whatever they're paying these firefighters - it's not enough.

I sure hope no one is holding their breath till the rain comes :roll:

Oooh! Hurricaines? Now those I know how to handle. When do we get those?

It rained most of the day last Tuesday at Yellowstone and they'd had heavy snow just two weeks earlier; lot of snow still on the ground, even below the 8,000 foot level. On the way home I spent two days in Taos, NM and it rained heavily last Saturday evening and had rained Friday as well. All together Taos had almost an inch of rain in those two days, but they were still far short of their normal rainfall.

The Tucson National Weather Service office reports that the two wettest monsoon seasons on record started late. Using the old dew point metric, those two years started on July 8 (1964) and July 15 (1955). Rainfall at Tucson International those two years totaled 13.84" and 13.08" respectively - more than twice the average! The forecast in Tucson looks promising for the dew point metric to exceed the monsoon threshold this weekend.

OK...let's get this friggin monsoon 2019 going! This one was a classic building in on outflows from the east and south. (I hate distractions when I'm watching a good baseball game on TV, but I'm lucky things weren't vaporized with all the intense close cloud to ground lightning ) 0.62 inch rain, 30 mph wind gust, no damage at my place, and general happiness. I'll take it!

[ youtube video ]

@rwstorm - It huffed and it puffed and we got a few rounds of sprinkles at my house near Oro Valley.

Dumping North Phoenix!! Woo hoo

Steady rain with thunder past 5 hours in Cave Creek. Ditto on the "Woo hoo" of kelly14!

I just did a thing outside. I’m so, so moist now.

Got a good rain east of Tucson Monday evening. I'm going to try my luck in the Chiricahuas Thursday and Friday. Suppose to be a couple of down days before next week but we all know how they are at predicting this stuff.

A very unusual widespread rain last night with few heavy storms. A modest .72" for me, but except for north Mesa, most areas seemed to see quite a bit less.

Interestingly, MCFCD has two new gauges in the Superstitions to monitor rainfall after the fire. One is located at the north Reavis trailhead, and another at Tortilla Ranch / JF Trailhead. It's nice to have a little more data from out that direction.

Why keep us in suspense, what were the reading of those two new Superstition rain gauges.

@SuperstitionGuy
24 hour totals:
.39" at 109 North TH
.43" at Tortilla Ranch

@chumley
The worst damage appeared to me to be along McKellips road near Lindsay. No other significant damage was noted elsewhere. I suspect a powerful downdraft snapped about 12-50 trees in a one block area.

The title of this thread is ironic for this season. It seems like the monsoon flow induced summer thunderstorms are continually, "on the way", and yet never, ever arriving.
Clearly, had the old weather thread not been locked, we would be getting ample summer rainfall.