Rainwater Harvesting and Cisterns in Tucson Homes

Rainy or Dry? The Future of the Monsoon This Year

July 24, 2009 | By Kelley Koehler | Filed Under About Tucson

Okay, so I’ve been talking about the Monsoon a lot this year. But I do love the rain! Maybe you have to grow up in the desert to be so obsessed with monsoons.

I ran across an article on the KOLD weather blog written by their meteorologist Erin Jordan. It’s an excellent explanation of how the rainy season in Tucson might boom or bust.

An excerpt:

Basically more warm water, means more tropical moisture for us to tap into. Often times this even means more tropical storms and hurricanes in the East Pacific. If our monsoon high sticks to our east, then the clockwise circulation around it helps push some of that tropical moisture right into southern Arizona. That means we may have a great monsoon! But it also means, with a ton of tropical moisture and possibly the left-overs of hurricanes and tropical storms heading our way, flooding downpours could be more common. If that high pressure moves into northern Mexico, which sometimes happens when an El Niño strengthens quickly in the summer, then our moisture would be cut-off, driven to the north. Our monsoon storms would have little chance to overcome the warm pool of air sitting over us. Right now the high is sticking to out east. We are watching it very, very closely for movement.

Most of us hope for a strong rainy season – but too much and it can flood and cause damage. Too little and our supply and plants don’t get replenished. It’s an excellent article, I think it explains the potential of the monsoon this year very clearly. Check out the full KOLD weather blog here.

Photo via Flickr, courtesy of limulus

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