Drought — Baboquivari Mountains, Arizona

2018-07-01 to 2018-07-30 · Baboquivari Mountains, Arizona

Event narrative

Extreme drought (D3 category) continued across Santa Cruz, far southwest Cochise, portions of southeast Pinal and southeast Pima, central Graham and northern Greenlee counties, including part of San Carlos Apache Tribal lands and the Baboquivari, Santa Rita, Huachuca and White Mountains for much of July. Six to eight inches of rain fell in the White Mountains of northern Greenlee County during July. Elsewhere, rainfall amounts ranged from 1.5 to 4 inches, which were 50 to 150 percent of normal for the month. Much of this rain fell during the last week of the month and was sufficient enough to raise soil moisture levels to the 10 to 20 percentile range and cause these areas to be upgraded to the severe drought (D2 category) by month's end.

The human caused Cumero Fire, which spread into southeast Pima County from Mexico, was dowsed by early July rainfall. Lightning ignited several wildfires (Bruno, Howard and Winchester) in Cochise County just east of the extreme drought area during the last week of July, but these were also quickly contained with the help of monsoonal moisture and rainfall.

Wider weather episode

Extreme drought (D3 category), which began in January, began to decrease in areal coverage across parts of southeast Arizona toward the end of July. By month's end, the extreme drought was limited to the western halves of Pima and Pinal counties and far northern sections of Graham and Greenlee counties.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 768493. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.