The Valley is known for being hot and dry, but that certainly wasn’t the case in September 2014.
Sept. 8, 2014, was the wettest day in Phoenix history. The official gauge at Sky Harbor International Airport caught 3.30” of rainfall that day, with other areas of the Valley seeing between 3 and 5 inches of rain.
Here are the top 5 wettest days for Phoenix:
5. November 10, 1923 – 2.24”
4. October 2, 2018 – 2.36”
3. August 27, 1951 – 2.43”
2. July 3, 1911 – 2.81”
1. September 8, 2014 – 3.30”
The historic rainfall came as remnants of Hurricane Norbert brought a surge of moisture into Arizona.
From June through September that year the Phoenix received 6.34" of rain.
Even with all of the rainfall that year, it was only our seventh wettest monsoon season on record for Phoenix. The year 1984 was actually the wettest monsoon season on record, with Phoenix seeing a total of 9.56" of rain.
Here are the top 10 wettest monsoon seasons, according to weather officials:
10. 1955: 5.99”
9. 1897: 6.03”
8. 1943: 6.15”
7. 2014: 6.34”
6. 1951: 6.96”
5.1896: 7.20”
4. 1939: 7.30”
3. 1946: 7.45”
2. 1911: 9.31”
1. 1984: 9.56”
On average, Phoenix sees 2.43 inches of rain each monsoon season.
The 1896 season topped the list of years with the most days with monsoon rainfall at 24 days, closely followed by the 2021 monsoon at 23 days.
In 2020, we saw just 2 days with monsoon rain.
