The year 2008 will go down as wild year here in the Valley of the Sun when it comes to weather.
We had everything from near record dry spells, consecutive days over 100 degrees, severe thunderstorms with the monsoon, and monster dust storms.
The one thing that separated this year from others was rainfall.
Sky Harbor International Airport received a whopping 9.58 inches of rain which ended up 1.91 inches above normal for 2008. It was the 14th wettest year on record.
We had 39 days where rainfall was greater than .01 inches, 22 days greater than .10 inches, 8 days greater than .50 inches, and 1 day where we had more than an inch of rainfall.
Keep in mind that the wettest year on record occurred back in 1905 where 19.73 inches of rain fell where as the least amount of rainfall ever for a calendar year was 2.82 inches back in 2002 and 1956.
Temperatures for 2008 were a little warmer than normal, but that shouldn't surprise anyone with our so-called "heat island."
The average high temperature was 86.9 degrees which was a half degree warmer than normal.
The average low temperature was 63.8 degrees which ended up 1.9 degrees warmer than normal.
Of course, we had our typical brutal summer temperatures.
Sky Harbor International Airport recorded 22 days where the mercury climbed to 110 degrees or above. We saw 106 days of 100 degrees or above and an amazing 172 days of temperatures over 90 degrees.
We did not see a single night get down to the freezing mark this past year. The coldest nights occurred on back-to-back nights on December 27 and 28 where the temperature got down to 34 degrees.
September and October of 2008 went down in the record books in terms of a lack of rain.
It was only the fifth time in history (and first in 35 years) that no measurable rain had fallen during these two months.
Normally an average of 1.3 inches of rain will fall during the months of September and October.
This dry spell, of course, followed a wild monsoon season that also went down in the record books.
Sky Harbor International Airport received 5.70 inches of rain during the monsoon which ended up being the 10th wettest monsoon on record and the wettest monsoon in 24 years.
We had two huge memorable storms that ripped across the Valley.
The first occurred on August 28th when five to six rounds of strong to severe storms rolled through the Valley.
Wind gusts were recorded to near 90 mph and radar-detected winds close to 100 mph at the ground.
Structural damage was incredible including the ASU football practice facility being ripped apart and toppled because of violent winds.
Rainfall with these storms ranged from .94 inches at Sky Harbor to more than an inch in Tempe.
The second memorable storm occurred on July 13th.
This particular storm was very isolated, but packed a big-time punch.
A slow-moving storm developed over the U.S 60 near Mill Avenue and stalled for nearly 3 hours.
Several rain gauges in the Tempe area recorded a little more than 3 inches of rainfall while another rain gauge recorded 2.4 inches near the U.S. 60 and I-10. Sky Harbor received 1.3 inches.
Just when you thought the summer monsoon was winding down, Mother Nature threw us another curve ball.
On September 11th, a spectacular dust storm moved over the Estrella Mountains and engulfed the Valley in just minutes.
Dust moved southwest to northeast, with winds 35 to 50 mph and visibilities down to zero in some spots.
A 3-mile stretch of power poles was blown down along old U.S highway 80 south of Buckeye and north of Gila Bend. Flights were delayed for almost an hour at Sky Harbor.
2008 was a memorable year when it came to our weather.
We finally had an above-normal year in terms of rainfall and decent snowfall in the high country.
We have definitely punched a hole in our current drought situation, but it is going to take 3 or 4 more years like this to really make a big difference in our long-term drought.
