2022 Monsoon Forecast for El Paso: Less Dramatic Than Last Year?

El Paso's rainy season usually means an increase in thunderstorm activity, and while we don't get much rain here in the desert, often times when we do get it, we get a lot of it at once.

Case in point is the exceptionally wet summer we had last year which had us looking more like the Soggy City than the Sun City.

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Two Sides of the 2021 Monsoon

The summer of 2021 saw several super-intense, record-breaking thunderstorms roll through the city. The resulting flooding each time wreaked havoc on homeowners’ properties, city streets, and every low-lying area it could find.

On the upside, the very active monsoon and the amount of rain it produced in a short amount of time brought so much life to the desert, and the change to our normally barren mountains was dramatic.

Both the Franklin and Organ Mountains in neighboring Las Cruces, New Mexico appeared to suddenly wake up sprouting an overabundance of wildflowers, desert plants, and fields of green as far as the eye could see.

Predicting the 2022 Rainy Season

How active will the monsoon be this year; same as, greater than or less than last year?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center isn't expecting an overly active rainy season, at least not at the onset.

Their seasonal precipitation outlook for our area through July is "leaning below" average. The odds increase to "equal chances" for the latter part of the season, July through September.

I reached out to the National Weather Service El Paso for their insight, and this was their reply:

It's hard to tell how the monsoon season is going to pan out this far ahead in time [but] we're currently not seeing any strong signals at the moment. So, right now just expecting a typical monsoon season with an increase in activity in July.