MONUMENT VALLEY, Arizona — It’s like the sky opens up and drops everything it had in a matter of minutes. Huge raindrops combine with hail to transform an otherwise warm summer day into a white winter scene, at least for a few minutes.
Then everything turned into red mud.
So the monsoon rolls into the southwestern United States, with thunderstorms and rain clouds hopping around as they bring much-needed moisture to a region where every drop counts. It’s the time of year when Arizona and New Mexico receive about half of their annual precipitation, from mid-June through September. Northern Mexico records even more.
From church altars and farms to town halls, prayers, songs and even festivals are held in hopes of a bountiful monsoon, enough to water crops and provide drinking water, but not so much that roads turn into rivers and homes wash away, while wildfires have ravaged mountainsides.
It can be a fine line.
Here are some things you should know about the North American monsoon:
The recipe is based on increasing summer heat and changing wind directions, which cause moisture from the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of California and sometimes the Gulf of Mexico to be transported to areas where it normally does not occur.
This means more showers and thunderstorms for the dry southwest. Lightning, dust storms and strong winds could also be part of the mix.
The monsoon has arrived a little earlier this year, said Todd Shoemake, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“A lot of the moisture that’s been there has been very high, very abnormally high,” he said. “And that’s led to a lot of very intense thunderstorms with very heavy rainfall.”
Monsoons in other parts of the world often mean months of endless rain. Not so in northern Mexico and the American Southwest, where mornings often begin with blue skies. Cumulus clouds begin to billow in the afternoon and within a few hours they break away.
A monsoon has ‘bursts’ and ‘pauses’ depending on how much moisture is circulating and which direction the wind is blowing.
This year’s monsoon stranded travelers in a remote part of central New Mexico, leaving them stranded in a thick soup of mud With little warning, a curtain of rain and hail the size of a lime was unleashed.
In Moab, Utah, about a month’s worth of rain fell in just 10 minutes. The water overtopped banks, bridges and sandstone cliffs. Homes were flooded and patrons at a bar were forced to evacuate.
Heavy rains have washed away major arteries connecting communities on the Navajo Nation. Emergency responders in New Mexico’s largest city have been flooded with calls for help as Albuquerque received nearly 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) of water in less than 90 minutes, leaving many roads impassable.
In parts of New Mexico devastated by fireSummer rains have become another threat. A black river of ash, dirt and debris swept through Ruidoso’s main street, carrying vehicles as homes and businesses flooded. The same thing happened in northern New Mexico, where many communities still need to recover from the burns of a 2022 wildfire, the largest in state history.
But the monsoon could also be liquid gold for farmers and urban water managers hoping to at least partially refill reservoirs and boost river flows. They are seeking a hedge against prolonged drought in a region that has seen increasingly erratic winter snowpacks and declining water supplies.
The 2021 monsoon was wet and the 2022 season started early. Right on time, there was plenty of moisture from the south and heavy rainfall was reported in the southwest. That year ended as another above-average season.
But the following year was a failure, with some places receiving only minimal rainfall, and many areas experiencing severe and even extreme drought during the summer months.
This season has been pretty intense so far, but Shoemake says the monsoon looks set to become more erratic.
“The last five years have been a very erratic monsoon pattern,” he said. “Ups and downs, ebbs and flows.”
He says meteorologists are seeing more and more extreme events as a result of climate change and the indicators they use to make long-term predictions are giving mixed signals.
“They’re not telling us the story that we used to see, you know, 10, 20, 30 years ago. So it becomes a little bit more difficult to assess seasonal precipitation,” Shoemake said.
Officials with the Arizona State Climate Office noted that the amount of moisture some communities experienced during the onset of the monsoon fluctuated widely, with precipitation ranging from 200 percent to 800 percent of normal.
“Not unusual for how things play out during an Arizona monsoon,” the office said.
The North American monsoon can be quite variable. But one thing is for sure: the season brings a special kind of anticipation to those who call the Southwest home.
Every hint of monsoon – the smell of rain, the darkening of the sky and the rumble of thunder in the distance – brings back memories of rainy summers past.
In Monument Valley, on the border of Utah and Arizona, Shaye Holiday’s family spends hundreds of dollars each summer repairing the roads that lead to their homes on the edge of the Navajo monument and into the park’s picturesque valley. Their tour business also takes a hit when the road through the park is closed because of flooding and erosion.
But for his father’s orchard and his grandmother’s garden, the rain is a blessing. And for him, coming home during the rainy season is a chance to recharge. He loves seeing the puddles that litter the desert landscape as he drives north from Kayenta, Arizona.
“It’s just uplifting and really nice to be back in Monument Valley, where Mother Nature wipes the slate clean,” he said. “In a way, it’s very refreshing.”