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Weather fails to douse fireworks
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Crowds watch the fireworks over the Mill Avenue bridge from the banks of Tempe Town Lake during the city's Fourth of July celebration.
Ralph Freso, Tribune
A few scattered thunderstorms hit the edges of the Valley Friday evening, though rain hadn’t been reported at any major fireworks display sites in the East Valley.
SLIDESHOW: Fourth of July celebration
June 15 start date for monsoon season debated
By 9:15 p.m., nearly an inch of rain had been reported in far northeast Scottsdale.
While lightning was visible from the interior of the Valley and winds picked up, no rain had been reported in Tempe, Mesa or Chandler at that time.
Fourth of July revelers enjoyed a cooler but stickier than expected night for fireworks.
Phoenix thermometers read 93 degrees at 9 p.m. Friday.
Highs topped out at 106 degrees during the day, cooler than the 113 degrees that had been forecasted earlier in the week.
Those cooler temperatures came with the moist air that suddenly rolled into the state over the past few days, which has the National Weather Service keeping an eye on some storms moving into the Phoenix area from the north and east, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jessica Nolte. There was a 20 percent chance of precipitation at 5:30 p.m.
With dew points in the upper 50s, anyone at outdoor Independence Day parties probably wasn’t anymore comfortable than if temperatures had stayed in the 110s, Nolte said. “A little bit nicer in terms of high temperatures but the moisture doesn’t make it anymore comfortable. It’s probably a little more sticky,” she said.
With all the moisture in the air, this is the time of year when weather watchers would have been looking for the monsoon storms to officially start, if the definition of monsoon season hadn’t changed to reflect the calendar instead of the dewpoint.
Under the old definition, the monsoon was officially here when the dewpoint hit an average of 55 percent for three consecutive days.
With an average dew point of 55 percent on Thursday and 60 percent on Friday as of 5:30 p.m., that definition would be met if the dewpoint stays high Saturday, though Nolte was quick to point out that, starting this year, the monsoon season officially started June 15.
Monsoon definitions aside, moisture was expected to remain in the air for the rest of the weekend with a 20 percent chance of showers and highs around 105. A warming trend is expected midweek, with highs topping out at 111 on Tuesday or Wednesday.
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