Monsoon storm activity picking up late in the week

A changing weather pattern is expected to increase Southern Arizona’s monsoon storm chances starting Thursday afternoon.

Meteorologist Julia Tetrault said chances of precipitation will increase throughout the weekend, but it’s too soon to tell which day will be the most active.

“Looking into the weekend, we are gonna start to see an increase in moisture, after Friday into the weekend, so there’s gonna be an up day, there’s gonna be at least one down day. Currently, we’re not entirely sure what day that’s gonna be,” she said.

She says the monsoon pattern in the Tucson Metro Area will be unique, as it is expected to bring storms later in the evening instead of late afternoon.

“Tucson Metro in particular is going to be slammed in like the later evening hours. It's not very typical with what we see with our normal-ish monsoon pattern, we usually see it in the afternoon, evening, not kind of later in the evening. So that's a different thing with this pattern,” she said.

According to the National Weather Service, the biggest concerns for the coming days are strong winds and blowing dust. Gusts could reach up to 70 miles per hour in places across Southeastern Arizona Thursday and Friday, while heavy rain and flash flooding threats are expected to continue into next week.