According to the National Weather Service:"A record rainfall of 1.23 inches was set at Phoenix yesterday November 30 2007. This breaks the old record of 0.55 set in 1982."
It is interesting to see how weather plays out in this time of global climate change. About ten years ago, when people really started talking seriously about the subject, experts predicted, among other things, this: Climate extremes would be more pronounced. In other words, where it was hot it would get hotter, cold would get colder, wet wetter, and dry drier. They also said that when storms happened they would be bigger and more intense.
Here in the desert southwest of Phoenix, we have seen these exact things happen: Winter 2007 was the coldest in 30 years; Summer 2007 was hotter and lasted longer than normal. Usually dry, we have been drier (now in our 12th year of below-average rainfall amounts). When we get a storm system move over us, like Friday, it is bigger, lasts longer and drops more rain.
I realize that, statistically speaking, it is hard to form opinions on trends with only a handful of data points (in this case, a dozen years), but it is intriguing that we are now seeing exactly what has been predicted in re climate change.
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