Anatomy of a Drought, Part 1

I think everyone can agree that we are currently in a drought across much of the Colorado Plateau.  I don't want to make too much of it because periodic, and sometimes lengthy, droughts have been common for a thousand years.  But a couple of interesting trends are beginning to emerge in Iron County, Utah.  The first is what I'll call "intensity."  For the past two years we have observed less than normal rainfall for 21 of the 24 months.  But, it is especially eye opening to realize that the normal expected rainfall for the 24 month period is 21.4 inches while we have actually observed just 10.4 inches.  The second trend is the failure of the monsoon.  Technically, the monsoon season is July through September, but in Iron County, October is also a wet month, usually wetter than average.  So, I have included it here.  The main point is that we would expect to receive about four inches of precipitation from July through October.  In 2019, however, we got 1.1 inches during that time.  In 2020, it was a paltry .23 inches.