PHOENIX (CN) — Now 30 years into a historic drought, the Grand Canyon State dragged itself through the hottest and driest monsoon season on record this year, which one expert called “hellish conditions.”
Just a year after Phoenix experienced the hottest July of any U.S. city in modern history, its home state recorded the highest average heat and lowest precipitation levels of any June through September stretch on record.
“We’re not in very good shape,” Mark O’Malley said in the fourth quarterly meeting of the Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee Tuesday afternoon.
O’Malley, southwestern Arizona regional coordinator for the National Weather Service, said he’s “very concerned” for conditions going into the winter, even in areas of the state that received average rainfall.
Monsoon season typically runs from June 15 to Sept. 30, but rainfall has been delayed to late July or as late as mid-August in recent years. June 2024 set the record for hottest June in Phoenix history, hovering at a daily mean temperature of 97 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 days — seven degrees hotter than the previous June.
While the average daily highs barely eclipsed those of June 2023, Arizona climatologist Erin Saffell said June 2024 was so much hotter on average because nighttime temperatures never cooled below 90 degrees.
Safell added that July 2024 was Arizona’s second hottest and 35th driest July on record.
The combination of historic drought and record heat, which postdoctoral research scholar Sonmath Mondal calls ”hotdroughts,” has severely reduced soil moisture across the state, even where rainfall hasn’t been as sparse.
“Evaporation is really becoming a problem for us,” O’Malley said. He said soil moisture is worst along the lower Colorado River and its watershed, where he’s recording the lowest streamflow in the past 25 years.
Mondal, research scholar from Arizona State University, told the committee that the drought should be viewed through the lens of heat, rather than as an independent entity, because one so heavily affects the other. In 2023, his research found that the heat wave was four times stronger than average conditions. He traced the so-called hotdrought back to Mexico.
“It seems like someone has put Mexico on fire, and that fire is spreading to the Four Corners states,” Mondal said.
He said the drought monitoring team can use heat wave data in Mexico and New Mexico to predict Arizona climate patterns up to two weeks in advance.
He said after the meeting that 2025 will only be worse.
“It will get very serious,” Mondal said on his way out of the conference room in the Arizona Department of Water Resources building. “Very serious.”
Despite the concerning data, there is some silver lining. Most of the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ drought monitoring wells, placed in five watersheds across the state, have increased water levels since the drought monitoring committee’s last meeting in July. Those wells are found along the Santa Cruz River and in Leslie Canyon. But despite the increase, water levels are still below the historical median, and have been since at least 2020.
Water levels in the Verde River and San Pedro River monitoring wells are at or near 100% capacity.
Heat is the deadliest weather element in Arizona, according to the National Weather Service. Between 2010 and 2020, the Grand Canyon State saw more than 3,000 heat-related deaths. Maricopa County recorded 425 heat-related deaths in 2022.
To prevent heat-related illness, the weather service recommends avoiding being outdoors. If necessary, drink one or two liters of water for every hour spent outside, and limit strenuous activity to the early mornings and late evenings. If a person becomes confused, dizzy or unconscious in the heat, call 911 immediately. The Maricopa County Health Department maintains a heat-relief map including cooling stations, hydration stations and donation sites for those who can’t escape the extreme heat.