Rain log · Public ledger · 2025–2026 monsoon & winter
Tucson rainfall, by date and gauge.
Every event large enough to be worth measuring, with NWS station readings, the El Encanto cooperator gauge, and a paragraph of field notes from whoever was on a job that day. The ledger is the receipt for any capture estimate we put on a rebate filing.
| Date | Total | Duration | KTUS | El Encanto | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-17 | 1.84″ | 41 min | 1.62″ | 1.84″ | El Encanto burst — first true monsoon kick |
| 2025-08-04 | 0.62″ | 4 hr | 0.58″ | 0.62″ | Slow soak; ground accepted everything |
| 2025-09-11 | 2.31″ | 14 hr | 2.18″ | 2.31″ | TS Lorena remnants; basin overflow event |
| 2025-10-06 | 0.34″ | 2 hr | 0.31″ | 0.34″ | End-of-monsoon spit |
| 2025-12-14 | 0.41″ | 6 hr | 0.38″ | 0.41″ | First Pacific cold front |
| 2026-01-22 | 0.89″ | 9 hr | 0.81″ | 0.89″ | Pacific cold front; below 40°F all day |
| 2026-02-19 | 0.27″ | 3 hr | 0.24″ | 0.27″ | Light winter shower |
| 2026-03-08 | 0.18″ | 30 min | 0.15″ | 0.18″ | Dust + sprinkle; mostly evaporated |
| 2026-04-29 | 0.22″ | 2 hr | 0.18″ | 0.22″ | Pre-monsoon spit; mostly evaporated before reaching root zone |
Why we keep this
The rebate paperwork we file with Tucson Water on your behalf includes a yearly capture estimate. That estimate is honest only if we can tie it to actual rainfall on actual dates. The ledger is how we do that. It also helps the crew calibrate basin sizing — when a 1.84″ burst in 41 minutes overflows a 50 ft³ basin (it usually doesn't), we know to size for 80 ft³ next time.
The four sources we reconcile each event from:
- NWS Tucson primary station at Tucson International Airport (KTUS).
- NWS Tucson Davis-Monthan Air Force Base (KDMA).
- El Encanto cooperator gauge, the closest CoCoRaHS station to most of our work — operated since 1986 by the same household.
- City of Tucson RainTalk network of citizen-science gauges in the urban core, which captures the cell-by-cell variability that monsoon storms produce.