Scottsdale and Arizona in general from a southeasterner's perspective

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by steve22

Thank the heat island effect for the lack of monsoon moisture. The amount of rainfall produced by the monsoons in the Phoenix area has been trending downward for some years now, and weather experts think it's b/c the radiating heat from the vast expanse of concrete dissipates the moisture. It won't be long before overnight lows in the triple digits become a regular occurrence, and the monsoon season will produce nary a drop most of the time; mostly, it'll amount to occasional dust storms (or dirt blizzards, as I like to call them), which will cause a lot of wind damage, late-night noise, and generally make a dirty mess of things, but provide little in the way of benefit.

You've been reading too many newspapers. And you have it wrong anyway. Heat island had nothing to do with this year's dismal monsoon.

[Bill-]

Originally Posted by steve22

Thank the heat island effect for the lack of monsoon moisture. The amount of rainfall produced by the monsoons in the Phoenix area has been trending downward for some years now, and weather experts think it's b/c the radiating heat from the vast expanse of concrete dissipates the moisture. It won't be long before overnight lows in the triple digits become a regular occurrence, and the monsoon season will produce nary a drop most of the time; mostly, it'll amount to occasional dust storms (or dirt blizzards, as I like to call them), which will cause a lot of wind damage, late-night noise, and generally make a dirty mess of things, but provide little in the way of benefit.

Here's an actual study from NASA that states that the heat island is increasing rainfall in some parts of Phoenix, and a similar situation in Riyadh Saudi Arabia.

NASA - There's a Change in Rain Around Desert Cities

[backtochitown]

Throw all the 'studies' on weather out...as nobody can predict it anyway...plan on one decent 'rainy' year out of every seven in the Phoenix dirt hole area.

[HX_Guy]

Steve22:

I generally have the same thought about the heat island effect and it affecting the rainfall in Phoenix. Whenever storms would roll toward Phoenix this summer, I pulled up the radar map on Weather.com and it always seems like the rain would form a circle around Phoenix...with lots of rain on the outskirts but nothing in the central city.
The study from NASA says the NE part of Phoenix increased 14% in rainfall but what about the inner city?

The thing is though...2007 was the driest monsoon in 14 years and the 8th driest on record. Ok...so that means that in 1993, we got even less rain, right? Phoenix has definitely sprawled out a lot more since then...so what explains that? Also...if this was the 8th driest, and 1993 was also one of the 8th driest...what about the 6 other times we got even less rain and those times were before 1993?

I remember seeing a chart on the news showing the last 10 years and either last year or the year before, we actually had way above average monsoon rainfall.

I guess we'll have to see what happens the next year and thereafter to see if this year was one of those 8 flukes on record or if it's a trend.

[steve22]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

You've been reading too many newspapers. And you have it wrong anyway. Heat island had nothing to do with this year's dismal monsoon.

I've been reading too many newspapers? What do you base your opinions on? Blind intuition?