Drought Status
Drought Status
Drought Status
The Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee confers weekly to advise the U.S. Drought Monitor authors on the current drought conditions in Arizona, and makes recommendations about the position of the drought boundaries for Arizona. The U.S. Drought Monitor is the official record of drought for Federal drought relief claims. Information used by the MTC in advising the Drought Monitor authors includes numerous drought indices, precipitation and stream flow data, and impacts data. Every Thursday, the Drought Status web page automatically updates with the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map of Arizona.
Monthly Drought Status Summary: NovemBER 2019
A series of winter storms crossed Arizona in mid- to late-November resulting in heavy rain and snowfall across most of the state.
The first major storm moved slowly over four days bringing soaking rainfall to many areas, without causing significant flooding. The second major storm lasted less than two days and brought heavy rain and snow with much colder temperatures. This storm resulted in significant flooding, particularly along the Tonto Creek.
Many parts of the state, which had reported well below-average precipitation for the year due to the dry monsoon, are now well above their annual averages. The widespread precipitation resulted in one to two category improvements in the short-term drought conditions across northwestern, central, and southern Arizona.
Over the last month, Severe Drought (D2) has been reduced from 40% to 25% of the state and Moderate Drought (D1) has been reduced from 78% to 46% of the state. Most of central and southern Arizona is now either Abnormally Dry (D0) or drought free.
Climate models suggest a few periods of wetter weather in December, but favor drier than normal conditions during the latter parts of the winter into spring.
At the end of each month, the MTC produces the web-based, short-term drought status update based on U.S. Drought Monitor's maps for the past four weeks. An email with the latest map and summary is sent to interested parties.
Quarterly Drought Status Update: July - September 2019
The monsoon activity began late in the summer with some heavy rainfall events, but they were highly localized, and precipitation was below average for most locations.
The dry conditions in July and August continued in September reversing the long-term drought improvements last quarter after the extremely wet winter and relatively wet spring. This led to a significant degradation in long-term drought conditions and the expansion of Moderate (D1), Severe (D2) and Extreme Drought (D3), particularly in the northern two-thirds of the state.
Cochise, western Maricopa and eastern Yavapai counties had above average monsoon rainfall and saw little degradation in long-term drought conditions.
Without an El Niño or La Niña signature in the Pacific, there is little climate signal suggesting any tendency for above or below normal precipitation heading towards the fall and early winter season.
This report was prepared by the Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee, October 4, 2019. Arizona's long-term drought status map is updated quarterly and the next update in early January will reflect the conditions of October, November and December. The long-term drought status for each watershed is determined by comparing the precipitation and streamflow percentiles for the past 24, 36 and 48 months to a 40-year historical record.