Rain in the desert! Phoenix got more rain than Seattle since July

By Dani Birzer

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    PHOENIX (KTVK, KPHO) — Move over Seattle! According to the National Weather Service, Seattle got less rain between July and October than Arizona did!

National Weather Service Seattle released a graphic comparing the total precipitation numbers among different cities across the U.S. The city with the most rainfall totals was Juneau, Alaska, coming in at almost 30 inches! Phoenix marked almost 2 inches of rain, trumping Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles! The NWS Seattle posted a full analysis on their Twitter page.

Seattle, sometimes called “Rain City,” is no stranger to various kinds of precipitation, including snow. Seattle-Tacoma Airport has been calculating the city’s precipitation totals since 1945, according to the Seattle Weather blog. On average, the city sees 39.34 inches of precipitation yearly. However, most of the inches come from rainfall rather than snowfall.

Here in Phoenix, our precipitation is calculated at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, which marked 2.23″ of rain from June 15 until Sept. 30, the monsoon “season.” Arizona’s Family First Alert Weather team says they’re anticipating a below-average rainfall total for 2022. In fact, 2022 is the fourth year in the past decade with below-average summer rain. According to the National Weather Service, the wettest year for Phoenix was 1905. That year saw a grand total of 19.73 inches of rain! The driest year was 2002, which saw 2.82 inches of total rainfall.

According to NWS, while these numbers might not yet be cause for significant concern if the dryness continues through October, “the more noteworthy this becomes.” It’s no surprise that most of the world continues to be in a drought, a phenomenon experts say is because of climate change. China reported its driest summer in 60 years, Europe was forced to enact water restrictions, and the Northeast began reporting more dryness than its ever seen before.

The drought is heavily impacting our National Parks. This past summer, Grand Canyon National Park saw a lessened water flow of the Colorado River since the snow was “melting about a month earlier than it did a century ago, and there’s evaporation as well,” Mark Nebel, the park’s geosciences program manager, told CNN. Upstream, Lake Powell saw a huge dip in water levels, bringing rockslides, corpses, and more to the surface than had ever been seen before.

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