Weather Alert: It's bloody hot!

I have no excuse. June is the hottest month in southeast Arizona followed by July, August & September. Nothing has changed to justify me thinking this year is going to be any more miserable than the last. Yet every year I blurt out 'I don't remember it being this hot last year!' But it was. Get over it dude...it's the same as last year!

The only reason July thru September are cooler than June is because of monsoons. Monsoons in Arizona are a miniature replica to what folks endure in e.g. India. Monsoon refers to the weather pattern which brings moisture-laden air from the Eastern Pacific across Baja California Sur and southern Arizona, then up the eastern slope of the Rockies in New Mexico, Colorado and the western great plains. Some years have more moisture than others, but the pattern has (so far!) been pretty consistent.

The monsoons give us moisture via T-storms. Not in the quantity expected in southeast Asia, but it does follow a similar weather pattern. Clouds often build starting late morning. Some of them build vertically forming thunderheads. Those thunderheads move across the open space and bring a brief respite from the heat and (maybe!) leave behind a tiny bit of moisture. 

'Moisture? Don't you get any rain?' Well, moisture is a word I learned from relatives in Wyoming who are ranchers. In California we would have called it rain, but when you see it coming for a couple hours and all you get is 0.02" of rain across your 15,000 acre ranch over a period of 15 minutes, it seems a drop in the bucket; ergo a piddling amount of rain is moisture.

We can watch the rain drift down from the clouds across the San Pedro Valley to the east of us.

The rain looks much more substantial from afar but there's not much that hits the ground as it passes over. Well... unless we get a 'gully washer'. It's a gully washer when you stand on the porch and watch a screaming river crash by! Over in about 10-15 minutes.

So here we are on 14 July with a total of 0.79" of rain for the month. Not much to brag about. But in an average year we can expect about 1.5" (give or take) of rain each month during July, August and September plus another 1.5" during the 9 month period of October thru June. My sainted father would have said "Arizona is drier than a popcorn fart!" Don't bother asking- I have no clue what it means except there usually isn't much rain!