The Monsoon May Finally Turn Wetter in the Parched Southwest

 Published: June 26, 2021

The Southwest may finally get a slight increase in moisture as the monsoon arrives next week.

Showers and thunderstorms will arrive first in parts of the Four Corners as a trough of low pressure nudges into the region from the Plains.

This dip in the jet stream will be shoved into the Four Corners region by a building dome of high pressure in southwestern Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

That dome will tend to pull the southward branch of the jet stream into the Southwest as the whole jet stream pattern becomes more amplified this weekend.

To the south of the trough, moisture should get pulled in from the Gulf of Mexico and slung westward across parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

While temperatures under the dome of high pressure will set all-time record highs, temperatures in the Southwest could be dampened a bit by the additional cloud cover and rainfall. Some locations in the Four Corners will actually see slightly below average afternoon temperatures.

Until this pattern takes shape early next week, at least some moisture will hang around the Southwest. Unfortunately, there will be some lightning with any showers and thunderstorms that pop up, which poses at least some threat of a few fires being sparked on dry ground.

(MORE: New Wildfires Pop Up in Western States After Weather Brings Brief Respite)

Here's a look at the current radar:

Widespread rainfall is not expected, at least initially, but humidity will gradually increase during the week ahead.

(MORE: Five Things We Typically See in the Southwest Monsoon)

This will result in isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms across parts of the Southwest.

This renewed plume of moisture comes just a week after the wet season began in areas like Phoenix, which recorded its first rainfall in almost two months on Wednesday. Phoenix measured 0.17 inches of rainfall Wednesday. That is well above the average of 0.02 inches for Phoenix in June, which is typically the driest month there.

Any moisture in the Southwest is a welcome sight during this long-term and slowly worsening drought.

Last year, the monsoon never arrived and rainfall during the typically wetter months was well below average. The non-soon resulted in the worst category of drought developing by mid-September 2020.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.