Maybe you’ve forgotten what rain looks like, but those small water droplets all over your windshield today in Maricopa were definitely it.
You’d be forgiven to have forgotten what this “rain” even is — Phoenix Sky Harbor, 23 miles due north of Maricopa, hasn’t had measurable rain in 158 days. Closer to home, we last had 0.13 inches of rain in Maricopa Sept. 2, according to National Weather Service data — 147 long, dry days ago.
The longest dry spell on record was 160 days, set back in 1972. To break this current streak, the weather measurement tools need just a single hundredth of an inch of rain. Trace rainfall doesn’t count.
While it certainly did rain in Maricopa today, it’s hard to measure how much rain fell – local rain gurus measured the rainfall in drops, not inches.
But they were just happy to be measuring anything.
“Woohoo!” was the reaction from MaryAnn Valencia when H2O made its way from the atmosphere to her Santa Rosa Springs home at 1 p.m. “We had a little mixed rain with tiny hail pellets.”
Today’s rainfall hadn’t yet broken the threshold in Phoenix.
“This is kind of a big deal,” National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Worley told InMaricopa. “The overall pattern hasn’t been conducive to rainfall. So far this winter, we haven’t seen the systems that brought in moisture.”
Worley said the National Weather Service in Phoenix is keeping a close eye on this streak. “We might consider popping champagne [if it does rain]. We don’t want to see this streak broken.”
If you’re in the Valley, you have a 20 to 30% chance of seeing rain. After today and tomorrow, the rain will bring cooler temps to Maricopa. The next couple of days will likely hover in the in the 50s and 60s before the temperature rises quickly.
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