Drought — Southeast Pinal County, Arizona

2021-07-01 to 2021-07-27 · Southeast Pinal County, Arizona

Event narrative

A wet July caused the exceptional (D4) drought category and extreme (D3) drought category to cease across nearly all of southeast Arizona, with exceptional drought only remaining in far southeast Cochise County by the end of the month. The extreme (D3) drought category remained across the rest of eastern and central Cochise County, much of Graham and Greenlee counties and parts of the Tohono O'odham Nation. July rainfall varied widely from 2 to 15 inches across southeast Arizona. In areas where the drought lingered through the end of the month this equated to 75 to 125 percent of normal rainfall while areas in which the drought eased further rainfall tallied as much as 400 percent of normal. July ranked as the wettest on record for any month at the Tucson International Airport where 8.06 inches was recorded. The rainfall caused wildfire season to end and soil moisture readings to improve from below the 10th percentile to between the 30th and 70th percentiles by month's end. Levels at San Carlos Reservoir started to rise, but only reached slightly more than 1 percent of capacity by the end of the month.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 972814. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.