The word monsoon conjures images of crowded Asian cities being deluged with several inches of torrential rain in a short amount of time. While Arizona's rainy season can be just as destructive, it mostly refers to the wet summer that follows a very hot and dry June. No where is the water more welcome than in the rim country, where it guarantees cooler temperatures and an explosion of life and color in the pine forests and surrounding grasslands. This past July has been extremely wet, with the monsoon blessing the region, and especially Prescott, with an abundance of life-giving moisture that has an added benefit of lowering the risk of deadly wildfires.
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| Clouds in a summer sky. |
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| View from Prescott to Flagstaff. |
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| Dark clouds usually mean rain. |
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| More dark clouds, near Spruce Mountain. |
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| Rain usually creates seasonal streams. |
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| The streams help fill reservoirs, like Watson Lake. |
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| The summer rains keep the ponderosa pine forests green, and lower the risk of forest fires. Most of Arizona's serious fires occur in June. |
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| Wildflowers abound during the wettest periods of the summer. |
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| A type of trumpet vine's flower. |
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| Many varieties of beetles seem to come out during the rainy summer. A ten-lined June beetle is in the foreground - in Arizona he's more common in July! |
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| But moths tend to prefer the drier parts of summer. |
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| It seems the rufous hummingbird comes to Prescott during the rainy season. He might be the most territorial species in the hummingbird family, and yet another individual who travels far to enjoy the Arizona monsoon. |
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