Valley endures another night of monsoon storms, with strong winds, lightning, rain

PHOENIX — For the second consecutive night, monsoon storms rolled through metro Phoenix on Thursday, bringing wind gusts, lightning and scattered showers.

In terms of rainfall, the East Valley saw the heaviest activity as the system moved north from the Tucson area.

“Last night’s totals for the East Valley range from a quarter to a half an inch. There were some localized spots that were up to an inch. Those were mainly just around Apache Junction or north of there,” Matt Salerno of the National Weather Service (NWS) in Phoenix told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Friday morning.

The far southwest Valley north of Gila Bend also had areas with more than 1 inch, according to Maricopa County rainfall data.

“They had flash flooding across much of southeastern Arizona last night,” Salerno said. “We did also see some isolated flash flooding in places such as Casa Grande [and] Gila Bend as storms tracked up. … The main push was from down in southeastern Arizona, where the coverage of thunderstorms was pretty expansive,” Salerno said.

For the second straight stormy night, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which the NWS uses for the city’s official records, received only trace amounts of rain. That left Phoenix at 0.39 inches of precipitation since the monsoon season started June 15.

Will Phoenix area see third night of monsoon storms?

The monsoon activity could continue for a third night on Friday, although rain chances are for the Phoenix area only about 20-30%, Salerno said.

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Marginal Risk for severe storms this afternoon and evening. Storms will form over the higher terrain of SC and SE AZ with a few making it into the lower deserts. Main risk will be strong wind gusts of 58 mph or greater. #azwx pic.twitter.com/1klrHeLfw1

— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) July 26, 2024

“The main threats for today would just be any gusty outflow winds that come out of storms from our east, maybe some wind gusts around 35 miles per hour,” he said.

Beyond Friday, the Valley forecast calls for sunny skies with highs of around 107 degrees through the weekend and early next week.

Monsoon activity keeps utility crews busy

Thursday night’s system came through around 24 hours after monsoon storms rocked the Valley with high winds and microbursts. Gusts up to 70 mph knocked down trees and power lines across the region, with the West Valley taking the hardest hit.

An estimated 20,000-30,000 Salt River Project and Arizona Public Service customers were affected by power outages at the peak of the damage on Wednesday night.

Crews worked throughout the day Thursday to restore power. As of Friday morning, the utility companies’ outage maps showed about 700 customers without electricity in pockets spread across the Valley. Some of the outages remained from Wednesday night, and others were the result of Thursday’s storms.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Jim Cross contributed to this report.

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