Arizona stands a better chance of an unusually wet monsoon, according to the latest summer weather predictions.
Nearly all of Arizona, parts of southern Utah and the Western parts of New Mexico will receive more precipitation than normal, according to the seasonal precipitation outlook from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.
Behind the change in weather patterns is the potential “super El Niño.”
What do we know about ‘super El Niño’
When the temperatures in the Pacific Ocean become warm, the water sloshes back toward the U.S. during the El Niño conditions.
The “super El Niño” will slow down the start of the monsoon but will attract more rain overall.
“In the past, El Niño didn’t have a super big impact on us,” said Randy Cerveny, professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University and extreme weather expert, told KJZZ.
“The only thing that’s probably helping us out that it will have this summer is that it’s so strong,” he said. “Because of that incredibly warm water that’s going to be in the Pacific Ocean, it will charge up more Pacific hurricanes.
“Those hurricanes drop a huge amount of moisture and it’s that moisture that we have to watch. Now in normal El Niño years, the number of hurricanes isn’t enough to really impact us.”
AccuWeather’s predictions reveal similar weather patterns, with Arizona expecting high precipitation.
Arizona will still have a hot summer
While the rain will cool down the Phoenix valley, which experienced the hottest on record and a record hot spring, too, it’s still expected to be a hot summer. Drought conditions are also expected to persist as they have for more than two decades.
“Unfortunately, it is going to be hot,” said Cerveny.
“But, to add to that, instead of using the normal word dry, we’re going to put the word moist because it’s probably going to be humid as well.”
As The Old Farmer’s Almanac forecasts, the hotter weather will persist in June and July with brief respites thanks to the monsoon, which takes place from June to August.
In Phoenix, the temperature highs will regularly range between 100 degrees and 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ryan Worley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Phoenix office, told Axios these cooler temperatures could extend into the beginning of 2027.
But it’s tough to predict the weather that far out. Many changes in the atmospheric patterns occur during the hotter and longer days of summer.
“There is a high-pressure system that sort of parks itself over us in the summer, which leads to the heat,” said Zack Guido, principal investigator for the fantasy forecasts project and an assistant professor at the Arizona Institute for Resilience, last year.
According to Guido, a lot of dynamics change in the day-to-day when it comes to predicting weather patterns.
“It’s a lot like fantasy sports; a lot of variables matter,” he said. “You never know if the star quarterback is going to come down with a cold.”
