"According to 'Good Morning, Arizona,' the monsoon season officially begins tomorrow. What is monsoon season? It's when the tropical rains arrive, bringing welcome relief from the desert heat.
Here in the Sonoran Desert, we call these thunderstorms “monsoons”...a misnomer, since the term refers "to a seasonal shift in wind direction." But that simple definition doesn't do justice to the spectacle of Arizona’s summer monsoon season.
Every year, sometime between mid-June and mid-July, the prevailing winds, which come from the west most of the year, change direction and flow from the south and southeast. This seasonal shift of winds brings tropical moisture from the Sea of Cortez and the Gulf of Mexico into Arizona.
When this moist tropical air collides with the desert heat, monsoon thunderstorms--one of the most spectacular and thrilling of nature’s displays--are born.
We desert dwellers yearn for the crack of thunder, the brilliant flashes of lightning and the deafening downpour of rain that cools the sweltering desert heat and makes the creosote bushes release their aromatic, herbal fragrance...if only for a few hours.
And when a monsoon moves in, temperatures may drop from 105°F to 60°F in a matter of minutes.
I can't wait."
~D.M.
Here in the Sonoran Desert, we call these thunderstorms “monsoons”...a misnomer, since the term refers "to a seasonal shift in wind direction." But that simple definition doesn't do justice to the spectacle of Arizona’s summer monsoon season.
Every year, sometime between mid-June and mid-July, the prevailing winds, which come from the west most of the year, change direction and flow from the south and southeast. This seasonal shift of winds brings tropical moisture from the Sea of Cortez and the Gulf of Mexico into Arizona.
When this moist tropical air collides with the desert heat, monsoon thunderstorms--one of the most spectacular and thrilling of nature’s displays--are born.
We desert dwellers yearn for the crack of thunder, the brilliant flashes of lightning and the deafening downpour of rain that cools the sweltering desert heat and makes the creosote bushes release their aromatic, herbal fragrance...if only for a few hours.
And when a monsoon moves in, temperatures may drop from 105°F to 60°F in a matter of minutes.
I can't wait."
~D.M.