Recent rain, snow make small impact for Arizona drought

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — It’s not a huge dent, but the rain and snow from the past couple of weeks put a small chip in the drought for part of Arizona. Below are two maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor. The first map is from last week, and the second is from this week.

You have to look closely but notice that the red area in south central Coconino County (around the Flagstaff area) shrinks slightly compared to the reports from last week.

The red area shows where “extreme drought” is located. While it is good news to see that “extreme drought” has reduced in size in Coconino County, much of the county is still covered in “severe drought” and “moderate drought”. Therefore, there is still quite a bit of ground to make up when trying to put a dent in the drought.

Unfortunately, the other Arizona counties did not show a change compared to last week. This includes Maricopa County, which is still in either “exceptional drought” or “extreme drought.” That being said, this situation would be even worse if it were not for the March rain in the Valley.

So far this year, Phoenix has received 0.87 inches of rainfall, almost all of which fell in March. The normal rainfall up to this point in the year is 2.33 inches.

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Copyright 2025 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.