In the past couple of years I did some posts looking at historical Monsoon rainfall in Tucson. Given a lot of positive feedback, let’s update the 2016 numbers.
First, let’s look at monthly rainfall in 2016 compared to Normal (Exhibit 1). We started off with a bang, in fact this year we had the fourth wettest June on record. July was quite decent too but then things tapered off in August to about half of normal. September turned out ok, so for the season overall we were about 25% above average.
Exhibit 1 – 2016 Monsoon Compared to Normal
Here is an updated long-term chart with a trendline in red (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2 – Annual Monsoon Rainfall In Tucson (Inches)
And lastly, let’s look at 2016 season among major Southwest cities (Exhibit 3). Only Tucson and El Paso did better than their averages, with the other cities coming well below normal.
Exhibit 3 – 2016 Monsoon by City
So all in all it was a decent monsoon season, especially in Tucson, but nothing to write home about (hence the short post).