Winter 2020-2021 Tucson Rain
A few days ago in an Associated Press story about the Climate Prediction Center's Drought Outlook for the Spring season, the story's lede was that the official forecast offers little hope for relief in the West. The story goes on to explain that the drought in the Southwest has developed from a combination of La Niña dry weather [this winter] coming after, in the words of the source NOAA press release, the failed 2020 summer monsoon.
As far as Tucson is concerned, April through June never offers hope for drought relief. These upcoming months are normally the driest three-month period of the year in Tucson, averaging less than three-quarters of an inch of rain total for the three months combined. The official seasonal outlook puts Tucson in equal chances for below normal, near normal or above normal precipitation for this April through June.
There are still a couple of slight chances for measurable precipitation over the remaining ten days of this month. But they won't make much difference for this November through March period, where the Tucson airport has had 1.42 inches, about 2 inches below average. It could have been worse, considering that it was a moderate La Niña (ONI -1.1 for January 2021). This was the worst winter for precipitation in Tucson since 2010-2011, which was also a moderate La Niña.
At my place I've done a bit better than the airport, 2.59 inches for November through March, but still a big drop off from the previous two winters. The summers following big winters may be just coincidences, but if last summer's monsoon deserved an F grade, the previous summer (2019, at least until after Labor Day) was a D. There's no reason to think that this coming summer won't be at least near normal, at least a B or a C, offering a little hope, though still three months away--this summer's monsoon can't be any worse than last summer.
