A look at the monsoon so far this season as some parts are soaked and others are dry
PHOENIX - We’re looking at how Arizona's monsoon season has shaped up, so far.
It turns out, it's been more active than normal in many parts of our state, but not so active in other parts.
Here's the good and bad news.
Up in Flagstaff, residents have seen a great amount of rainfall. Prescott has been well above average, according to the National Weather Service.
In the Valley, that’s the real mixed bag. Some spots are doing OK, but Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport sits at eight-tenths of an inch below average.
That could change though.
"I think there’s been a lack of storms that have made it off the high terrain and made it into the Valley," said Robert Rickey of the National Weather Service in Flagstaff. "Things can certainly change though. We could go through a wet spell in the Valley and ramp up the rainfall totals down there."
Some residents in one of the driest areas of the Valley say they haven’t seen a single drop yet.
"The water bill has been high this year. The air conditioning bill has been high this year. It’s been high, high, high, high," said Scottsdale resident Madelin Adams.
Depending on your address, you might think this has either been a very wet monsoon season or a dry one.
Where did much of the rainfall happen so far this year? Up north, but Tucson has seen a good amount of rainfall, too.
In the Valley, we’re below average, but the good news is we have plenty of time to make it up.
‘We look forward to it, but nothing’
Nidia Ryan's drip irrigation system has been working hard this summer.
Her Scottsdale home is right next to Maricopa County Flood Control District's rain gauge. They haven’t received a single drop from the sky this monsoon season.
"We get the dust storms, the heavy winds, but not an ounce of rain. Zero drops. We get alerts that rain is coming. We look forward to it, but nothing," she said.
Diane Fortney says it's the same story for her, too.
"Very dry, very dry," she said. "Too dry."
It’s the nature of these hit or miss storms.
"Sometimes monsoon rains, they come quick. So you can go from well below normal rainfall, to above normal rainfall really in just a couple of events, a couple of days," Rickey explained.
He says many regions in the north have above average rainfall right now. Some, like Show Low, are far behind though.
When it rains a lot up north though, the Valley benefits too.
"Rainfall in the mountains can fill up the aquifers and a lot of that run off will make it to the lower elevations as well," Rickey explained.
Ryan says they got plenty of storms last year even though, Valley-wide, it was a much drier season than this one.
Some years it’s wet, and other years, Ryan says, "you fight through."
The National Weather Service says for the next few days, drier patterns are moving in. But, we still have plenty of weeks of monsoon ahead of us, so stay optimistic.