Monsoon season started June 15th this year. A couple years ago weather experts decided that the “season” would start on this date every year, rather than by the weather pattern based on average daily dew point.
This weather-based criteria was important to home owners who used evaporative cooling to supplement their standard air conditioners. “Evap” coolers were much cheaper to run (my brother once told me 25% of the cost), but require a very low humidity to be effective, so could only be used until monsoon season started.
Now that air conditioners are so much more efficient, homeowners of the older homes that still have these evap units are most-often not replacing them when they die.
I doubt that the official start date really has anything to do with air conditioning, but it does signal the time of year when our humidity does start to rise, so we do start to see clouds much more often. And with clouds, we get some incredibly beautiful sunrises.
Like a few of my favorites from last year:
References for Arizona’s Monsoon Season:
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