Question for you weather guys

[Seldom Drawn]

We received over 17 inches of rain Flagstaff last monsoon season, and we are way behind this winter.

everyone is all worried about it,so the forests don't burn down this summer, and for antler growth,so we received 1.13 inches of rain here last weekend a slow steady rain the type that soaks in, but Sunday every creek and wash was flowing like a spring run off when we have 100 inches of snow ,so if it is so dry why was everything flowing, heck even Lower Lake Mary filled up.

[n2horns]

Ground reaches capacity thus the flows.

[Seldom Drawn]

Ground reaches capacity thus the flows.

So if we are in a drought ,like everyone and there brothers are saying how does ,1 inch of rain cause all these rivers?

[AZ8]

Drought originates from a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time. Just because it rains good for a couple months during the monsoon, it doesn't make up enough to cancel out the entire year of below normal precip.

 

Using your example of Flagstaff: 9 inches(rain and melted snow) since October 1. Average for this time period is 12+ inches. A deficit of over 3 inches already and now heading into the driest part of the year. This added to previous year deficits and what you have is a compounded effect that will take many wet seasons to overcome.

 

One good monsoon or wet winter doesn't really affect the long term drought conditions.

 

You have to look long term and not focus so much on local conditions, i.e., stream flowing after a recent storm.

 

Arizona is in a perpetual drought. It's the norm here. But it's nice to get some good moisture from time to time. Remember winter 1993?

[Swivelhead]

Aquifers get recharged via snowpack. Rain is good, snowpack is better. Our aquifers are depleted, springs are drying up, rivers run less every year. We are pumping our aquifers at an unsustainable rate. Eventually the Verde will suffer the same fate as the Salt and Gila rivers. Just a matter of time.

[PRDATR]

The earth can only absorb water at a given rate then it runs off creating flash floods. The vast majority of the soil is rocky and clay based which is also why we see standing puddles for a couple of days in rutted out dirt roads.

When it rains very slowly for a time a lot of the water soaks in but get a couple of heavy downpours during that time and swoosh the excess water ends up in the canyons and washes.

[Edge]

I earned my stripes as a USAF Meteorologist but in my private time, I did climatology studies for private companies including what is now Morton's Salt, searching for practical brine evaporation locales in the southwest like we have here in Glendale.

 

We have such little empirical data to go by, the suggestion of Man Made Global Warming evidence makes me throw up in my mouth. We have been keeping weather data for only a couple hundred years. We can look at tree rings and take polar ice core samples, but it will only produce a smidgen of data from this planets long, long history and it only serves to prove the earth's climate cycles with or without us.

 

This being said, we need to conserve what water we have here in the DESERT, and keep finding new ways to reserve water for the future. Look at your water bill sometime and ask yourself why you need tens of thousands of gallons per month?