Monsoon 2016 is abnormal.
It rained less in August, our historically wettest month, than it did in June, our driest one.
The region remains ahead of its normal totals for the monsoon season of June 15 to Sept. 30, despite the disappearance of thunderstorms for weeks at a time.
The official Tucson rain gauge at the airport has collected 5.8 inches since the start of the monsoon June 15, with 1.39 inches falling in the second half of June; 3.32 inches in July and 1.09 inches in August.
“There is no such thing as a normal monsoon, but this one is on the extreme edge” said Mike Leuthold, who makes high-resolution monsoon thunderstorm forecasts at the University of Arizona’s Atmospheric Sciences department.
“It really was an all-or-nothing kind of year where, when it was raining, it rained a lot, but then it went away for weeks,” Leuthold said.
The bulk of Tucson’s rain came in “two acts,” with a burst in late June and early July, and another burst at the end of July, said UA climatologist Mike Crimmins.
This year’s monsoon has “its own bit of quirkiness but is not unprecedented,” Crimmins said.
Most areas of the state are on pace for normal or better-than normal totals, he said.
Southeastern Arizona has been “very good, very wet and pretty even.” Prescott and Flagstaff are well above average, he said.
Tucson needs only 0.28 inches of rain by Sept. 30 to achieve normal for the season.
Tucson neighborhoods that took the brunt of those very wet days are way ahead of normal, with rain gauge readings of 9 to 14 inches throughout midtown, according to the UA’s Rainlog.org website.
Tucson should be dry through the holiday weekend with a good chance of rain returning by midweek, according to the National Weather Service.
