Are there monsoons in arizona

Our speed tends to be too fast, our signaling could be called sporadic and, at certain freeway spots, you might suddenly find yourself emergency braking as traffic come to a dead stop from 70 mph. If your hair already stands on end at the thought of driving while the roads are dry, it gets much worse when the roads are wet.

As soon as it starts to rain, accidents happen right and left. You could also get blinded depending on the direction of travel. Our recommendation when a monsoon storm rolls through would be to stay indoors for a few hours after it passes.

If you have to be out and about, stick to surface streets when possible and drive as defensively as you can. Get more information from the City of Phoenix on approaching storms, storm cleanup efforts, important hotlines, and plenty more tips.

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Close 1 of Blooming prickly pear cacti add a splash of color near a crested saguaro in Sabino Canyon. Gila monster seen along a trail at Ventana Canyon. Chiara Bautista and Maria Camou. Don't freak out, they're just out enjoying the weather like everyone else. You can follow the Tucson Monsoon on Twitter.

If you feel like conditions are too bad to continue driving, slowly pull off the side of the road as far right as you can, turn off your car, turn off your lights, and keep your foot off the brake pedal. Otherwise, drivers might come up behind you and, thinking you are still in motion, rear end your vehicle. Because the rest of the year is so dry, the ground in the Valley has a difficult time absorbing the intense monsoon rains.

Washes fill quickly, and entire streets may even flood. A few years ago, I was impassable for a brief period. What looks like only an inch or two can be much deeper.

As little as 6 inches can sweep you off your feet and 24 inches can wash your car off the road. Even a high-clearance vehicle is at risk in just 24 inches.

If you approach an area with running water, DO NOT attempt to cross it, especially if a nearby sign warns against crossing when flooded. Your miscalculation can cost you not only financially but it can cost you your life. While this year's monsoon may have seemed wet, with near-constant flooding, it failed to make it into the top 10 wettest monsoons for the city. The 10th-wettest monsoon for the city was nearly 6 inches of rain in And the last time the city made it into the top 10 was , when the Phoenix area received 6.

Likewise, the season's rainfall in Flagstaff was high, with almost 11 inches, but it was just barely enough to make it into the top The tenth-wettest season delivered The rain totals in most areas of the state stand in stark contrast to those of last year and the year before, when some areas like Phoenix received barely above half an inch of rain.

But when it comes to the variability of the season, most scientists say it's within the normal degrees of divergence. As the season flowed into August and September, rainfall started to taper off, with a few exceptions. Tropical storm Nora brought in an uptick in moisture from the Pacific, delivering one of the last mega-soakers for the season. And the Phoenix area received a healthy dose of water during a late afternoon storm in the middle of September.

Overall, the humidity, rain and precipitation brought much-needed moisture to the region following a prolific wildfire season and provided a welcome reprieve after the "nonsoons" of and The monsoon did little to quell widespread drought conditions that have persisted for the better part of two decades, according to Erinanne Saffell, the Arizona State Climatologist at Arizona State University.

But there was temporary relief. And so that's where you're looking at plants, vegetation, those kinds of things. And then there is hydrologic drought. The monsoon helped with the former, a much shorter-term event that allows plants to flourish but does little to recharge aquifers. According to the National Drought Monitor , heavy precipitation mitigated drought throughout the region.

At the start of the monsoon, the monitor categorized most of Arizona as "D4", meaning extreme drought. By September 15, some of the same areas had dropped to "D0," merely abnormally dry. Phoenix had gone down to "D1", moderate drought. For residents, one of the biggest payoffs was the potential for lower water bills. As a result of near-daily rain, gardens, flower beds and even agricultural fields got their most precious resource from precipitation.