Yesterday Mrs. L.A. and I were chatting about temperatures, and I brought up the swamp coolers we had in the desert. I said they had some disadvantages, such as: You had to turn them on early, if you want the house to be cool all day; and you had to go up on the roof to clean the excelsior bits out of the ‘spider’ so the water could flow. I also mentioned that they didn’t work well during the August ‘monsoon season’. Although she’d lived in the Mojave Desert longer than I had, she’d never heard the August rainy season referred to as the ‘monsoon season’. I heard it all the time (well, every year) when I lived there, and I’ve heard people from Arizona using the phrase as well.
So tell me, Desert Dopers, is ‘monsoon season’, as it refers to the Summer rainy season, a familiar term to you?
BTW, the National Weather Service uses the term, so it is pretty mainstream and not just a few people who call it monsoon season. Links on that page to all the associated fun - flash floods, lightning, downdraft winds, and dust storms.
“Monsoon” or “monsoon season” is, yes, exactly that – a particular seasonal shift in weather patterns. Though the original monsoons (such as the one that occurs in the region of the Indian subcontinent) are marked by both wet phases and dry phases, the colloquial usage of the term tends to focus on the rainy phase.
As other posters have noted, the phenomenon in the U.S. Southwest is commonly referred to as “monsoon season,” and by professional metorologists as well as the public. It’s specifically known as the North American Monsoon.
Yup, Tucson Doper here, and “monsoon season” is a very common and familiar term here. Better known than “Elmer season”.
By the way, it starts sooner than in August. The National Weather Service officially designates monsoon season as the period between June 15 and September 30, so it lasts for three and a half months.
It used to be science related. The start of the season was determined by the dew point being above 55 for three days in a row. Now they just assign a start date like it’s Columbus Day sales or something. It doesn’t make the rains come on schedule, they still come when science calls, but I guess it makes for better marketing.
We haven’t had much of one this year. I blame trump.
I’ve not heard the term, and if I was quizzed would assume it was Jan/Feb when we get our rainfall. Hard to attribute ‘monsoons’ to one of our driest months.
Meteorologists here in the Denver area have been using it for years; for Denver, it usually starts in early August. Some monsoon seasons are more monsoon-y than others; this one started out pretty well but we haven’t had a decent rainstorm in quite a few days.
That’s the thing. It’s dry in June and July, and the first part of August. Then the humidity increases so that, with the heat, it’s very uncomfortable; and the thunderheads build. It comes down hard, being hot and sticky and the swamp coolers don’t work, and then it dries up again in a few weeks.
It’s been a mild season so far this year.
We had truly hellacious storms last year. My neighbor’s huge pine tree blew down and smashed her horse trailer during one of the storms. saved her roof, though.
Oddly enough, one of the most recent episodes of the Desert Oracle podcast (Ken Layne’s ramblings on all things Mojave) was about how swamp coolers don’t work in monsoon season.
At least some of the meteorologists in Phoenix still reference the three consecutive days of 55F dew points as the start of the monsoon. And yes, we’ve had the humidity but not the rain this year.
New Mexico here and monsoon season is upon us! I had a smallish swamp cooler that was ok for late May, June, and the first half of July, but couldn’t keep up later in summer once the humidity gets above 35%. Our monsoon season brings higher humidity but more cloud cover (which helps). This year I put in a big deluxe swamp cooler and it’s been heaven!! I LURVES swamp coolers!!
