What The Hail? Wacky Weather in The Valley of the Sun

While we have been expecting some rain today, it just got down right nasty. I wish I could get my phone to upload the photos, but right now we have sideways rain and pea size hail stones in the middle of July. I have lived in AZ my whole life and never saw hail in the summer and rarely in the winter in the Phoenix metro area. It has gotten so bad that the rain and hail came down our hood vents in the restaurant I work at. The streets are flooded and people have pulled off the road into our parking lot. This is definitely strange. So if you're are here in AZ with me, be smart and be safe.

I live in the area of 31st Ave and the 101, and have yet to see a single drop of rain. Yeah, it's plenty cloudy, but no rain. Barely even a breeze.

Hope to get some soon!!!

reply to post by 1MrMarc


And on the good side of the world ,it's winter ,typically dry season with warm sunny days and cold nights.For the past two weeks we have had summer type weather ,rain,humidity and temps 12 degrees above average.Warmest July on record.

reply to post by azbowhunter

You're lucky. It was bad. I wouldn't let any of the employees leave until just now since it calmed down. They even made panchos out of trash bags

reply to post by 1MrMarc


Greetings from Germany, its raining since weeks...aint no sunshine..

Hail is kind of rare down there, but not sideways rain or other wild weather. Nothing really out of the ordinary for monsoon season. But when it comes down in buckets like that, yeah, the streets are going to flood. Happens almost every year.

phoenix.about.com...

reply to post by SkullAndBeats235

I'm sorry to hear that, that's too much rain. We definitely needed it here, but this was unusual.

reply to post by Taupin Desciple

You're right. The hail freaked me out though. If it didn't hail, I wouldn't have bothered posting. Plus it was kind of a surprise because the last few years haven't given us much of a monsoon season.

posted something about weird weather in the last week.......was slated by someone i won,t mention for my lack of grammar and the fact the weathers fine.

the weathers not fine when most areas of the world are having the most extreme weather they,ve seen in decades.

i,m in britain but heard on news that somewhere in america hit 47 degrees........ok i don,t know if thats normal but what i do know is the weather we,r getting here isn,t for this time of year.

reply to post by sparky31

I remember that. Don't pay the grammer nazis and proofreaders any attention. It's the content that counts. let's just hope this stuff is a fluke.

reply to post by 1MrMarc


i try not to,but thanx for the support....yeah cause if its not a fluke then we may have 2 start asking questions

We just finished off a record setting heat wave here in the Eastern States... broke records from the 1930's, the absolute HOTTEST ever recorded here... it was pretty darn nasty!!

Rained all day today but we really needed the rain so I'm not complaining

ya i live in north west part of AZ no rain yet but yesterday we had some major flash floods here.

Live in Glendale. No hail here as of yet. Some rain but not much really.

As for never hailing during the summer here, not true. In the summer of 2004, I think (could've been '05), it came on down. It hailed pretty good one day, briefly. It even left the bed of my roomate's truck with quite a large amount of hail, that we proceeded to throw at each other.

Anyway, weather is always weird here during monsoon, especially in a year where an upswing in rain is expected (El nino/La nina).

ETA: Cool video of a recent dust storm!

Not quite understanding why it is so unusual. My understanding is that it is Monsoon Season in Arizona, including Phoenix.

In Arizona, as in other regions of the world including India and Thailand, we experience a monsoon, a season of high temperatures, high winds, and high moisture, resulting in potentially deadly weather.

Up until 2008 Arizona's monsoon varied from year to year in starting date and duration. The Arizona monsoon officially began after the third consecutive day of dew points above 55 degrees. On average this occurred around July 7 with the monsoon continuing for the next two months.

Monsoon storms range from minor dust storms to violent thunderstorms. They can even spawn tornadoes, though that is very rare.

Arizona Monsoon

Like I posted before. I wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't for the hail. It was unusual the small handful of other times it may have happened too. Simma.