In the past few years I did some posts looking at historical Monsoon rainfall in Tucson.  Let’s update the 2019 numbers, a little late but here it goes.

First, let’s look at monthly rainfall in 2019 compared to Normal (Exhibit 1). Overall, this season was about an inch or 17% under the normal levels. June – August were well below normal while we played catch up in September. November saw heavy rainfall, but that’s technically outside of the monsoon season…

Exhibit 1 – 2019 Tucson Monsoon Compared to Normal

Here is an updated long-term chart with a trendline in red (Exhibit 2).  We are somewhat below the trend but nothing dramatic.

Exhibit 2 – Annual Monsoon Rainfall In Tucson (Inches)

And now that 2019 season is in the books, we can say that the decade of 2010’s was a pretty good one with average of 6.46 inches per year (Exhibit 3). It’s the best since 1980’s and third best since 1900.

Exhibit 3 – Average Monsoon Rainfall by Decade (Inches)

And lastly, a comparison of 2019 season among major Desert Southwest metros (Exhibit 3). From this perspective, Tucson’s 17% shortfall looks pretty good compared to the other parched cities – Phoenix was 76% below normal at only 0.66 inches!

Exhibit 4 – 2019 Monsoon by City

Overall, it was a fairly unremarkable monsoon season, really nothing to write home about – thus the short note. Happy Thanksgiving everyone (rain projected)!