Climatologist on start of Arizona monsoons

This year, June 15 marks the beginning of monsoons in Arizona. This period of three months, until September 30, is characterized by afternoon dust storms, wild weather storms and damaging storms.

The 2024 Arizona monsoons saw the northern and southeastern parts of Arizona receive near-to or above-normal precipitation, although the Phoenix region fell well below normal levels. This, along with an abnormally dry winter, left much of the state at a level of extreme drought, according to the National Weather Service.

The prediction for 2025 is nearly all of Arizona will have a lean (33 to 50%) towards above-normal precipitation and above-normal temperatures (40 to 60%) for July through September.

Randy Cerveny, Climatologist at ASU, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the monsoons season.

The Monsoon season may be known for the heavy rain storms but also includes dust storms. Cerveny explained that there is a new ranking system for dust storms similar to hurricanes “we said, we need to come up with a ranking system for dust storms, so that we can tell when are the bad ones and what are the not so bad ones.”

“About 60% of all dust storms are going to classify out as a category one,” Cerveny said. He went onto explain that in the past 15 years only two storms have classified as a category five storm. Including the infamous dust storm that delayed an ASU football game.