So apparently monsoon season in Prescott Arizona doesn’t start until July 🙁 Here I was really looking forward to all the rain and when I didnt see any of it I decided to do a little research…

Weather Patterns

As some of you may know we do have a Meteorology major offered at the Prescott Campus so I took it upon myself to ask a Meteorology student about what on earth is going on. This is what he told me 😀

Monsoons are a phenomenon that are triggered every year as a result of the Earth’s angle with the sun. So when the monsoons occur in Prescott the Earth is at a the steepest angle possible and is even farther from the sun than it is in the month of January.
So the question is this “If we are on Earth and we are farthest from the sun in July how is it that July is warmer than January?” Well, the Meteorologist in training told me that the temperature also has to do with the position the Earth holds in orbit around the sun. Yes we are farthest away from the sun at this time but, our continent is more in line with the rays of heat/sunlight during the summer months which is why it is still hotter in July than in January.

Sketch of the Angle between Earth and the Sun

Of course as an Engineer I really didn’t need to know all this but, its pretty interesting so I thought it would be nice to share 😀 If you have any comments or questions please respond below or if you would like to check out our Meteorology major just click here. Thanks for reading!!!