Climate Experts: Tucson's Monsoon Storms Could Intensify, Get Harder to Forecast
Zack Guido / Arizona Institute for Resilience
There are small but subtle changes that take place in Southern Arizona's climate before our yearly monsoon rains start.
Hsin-I Chang, the director of the University of Arizona's Center for Applied Hydroclimate Sciences within the Arizona Institute for Resilience, said she can feel the humidity in the air and notices the mountains become greener from new plant life.
Chang, who first came to Tucson in 2010, said she's also seen slight, gradual shifts in monsoon patterns over time. The storms usually hit later in the day, she said, and they occur less frequently than they did 15 years ago.
"Now, we see one every two or three weeks if we're lucky," she said. "But just because we see a lower number of monsoons doesn't mean we're seeing a decreasing amount of rain."
She's one of several experts at the university who say predicting monsoon patterns through Southern Arizona is not an exact science, but they expect storms will intensify over time as temperatures in the region continue to rise.
And proposed federal funding cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates the National Weather Service, could complicate how future monsoons are forecast.
"It's happening already," Chang said. "This isn't just the future."
Despite multiple days in June reaching triple-digit temperatures, forecasters from Tucson's NWS office have predicted above-average precipitation for this season.
Michael Crimmins, a climatologist and professor at the university's Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, said the increasing power behind the storms can mean a rise in flash flooding and microbursts.
"These are extreme storms where high, localized winds can create lots of wind damage and power outages," he said.
'A drastic change'
Zack Guido, the director of the university's International Resilience Lab, a program within the Arizona Institute for Resilience, is researching how information about the climate is disseminated to the public and how that information is received.
Each summer, he and Crimmins, aim to involve the public through the Southwest Monsoon Fantasy Forecasts, where players can accumulate points by predicting the amount of rainfall in several major cities between July and September.
"A lot of people in the Southwest get excited about the monsoon. It's like climate that moves on a much faster timescale, so there's actually new things to talk about each week," Guido said. "Climate tends to move very slow. That's the difference between climate and weather."
He said he's using the game this year to gauge players' level of interest in learning more about the climate and how they seek that information.
"There's a lot of science around the benefits and nuances related to gaming and education," Guido said. "We want to see if interacting with this game changes people's interest in the weather and climate… Do they go out and try to understand a little bit more? Do they seek additional information?"
In May, the proposed federal budget for the 2026 fiscal year included more than $1.3 billion in cuts to NOAA's research, data and grants programs. Guido said those funding cuts would reduce specially trained NWS staff.
"I do know that some weather forecast offices, not in Tucson but elsewhere, are already experiencing staff shortages and are trying to partner with close-by weather forecast offices to do forecasting on off hours, like at night, for example," Guido said. "It's not like the weather services and the weather sciences will go away, but there is a drastic change."
As of last Tuesday, Gary Zell, the Tucson NWS office's steward of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union for NWS staff, said the office had not seen any layoffs in 2025. The last person who left the office, he added, retired in April.
The proposed federal budget also included more than $200 million cut from NOAA's Procurement of Weather Satellites and Infrastructure program. For Guido, that means there's uncertainty about how weather conditions can be forecasted as accurately as possible.
"The ability to forecast the weather is largely pinned on our ability to monitor current conditions," he added. "Things like balloons that we release into the air and sensors that we have at certain places to measure temperature and humidity and precipitation, all of those things are critical for initializing weather forecast models."
'Whether we like it or not'
Chang and Crimmins said the changes in monsoon patterns, along with changes to the climate in general, are accelerated by the release of greenhouse gases, which are released into Earth's atmosphere through human activities such as burning fossil fuels.
Chang said studies have shown these gases can be released multiple ways, from emissions from factories to hog farms.
Though there are multiple types, she said, the most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which is created through burning fossil fuels.
There are things the average person can do to reduce emissions, she added, like consuming less energy and driving less. But in Southern Arizona, where the heat can pose public health and safety risks, asking residents to do all of those things presents a conundrum. The use of air conditioning requires energy, she added, and walking or cycling in the heat can be hazardous.
"There's no one set answer, but there's always a choice to adjust your thermostat by a degree or get an electric vehicle if you can afford it," she said. "You may not see the changes immediately, or even in the next year. But in the long run, it's going to make a difference for sure."
Crimmins expects that most of the changes needed to slow the effects of climate change would have to happen on a societal level.
"Climate change is going to require action, whether we like it or not," he said. "That's the narrative wherever you are on the planet."
Ultimately, Chang added, heavier monsoon storms could be risky and adversely affect property and infrastructure, but the region's extreme heat poses a more immediate risk.
"Now, it's about how much hotter it gets before the monsoons start," she said.
And Crimmins is hoping the first monsoon rain of 2025 will be a welcome relief from that heat.
"It's a fantastic season in Tucson because of what we're seeing today, with 105 degrees," he said on June 20. "It's almost like an emotional release."