Today @ 6: Turn Off the Evening News and Enjoy Monsoon Stories & Games Instead!

Join Climate Tucson to celebrate the official start of the 2025 summer rainy season with two of the Sonoran Desert's biggest fans and top researchers on the North American Monsoon. Or as we call it, the most wondrous time of the year that only a few of us — those who live here and endure the heat — ever experience.

Our guides are University of Arizona Drs. Michael Crimmins and Zack Guido, climate and environmental scientists who also know how to enjoy the fascinating season.

Crimmins and Guido lead the annual — and still open to players — Southwest Monsoon Fantasy Forecasts. Learn how to play this part science–part "gut feeling" game on monsoon rain totals and more.

That's not all. The love of all things monsoon (and the Sonoran Desert), the two colleagues host the Southwest Climate Podcast, which last month featured a sneak preview of what may be in store as the rain approaches (maybe as soon as this week into next).

Check out the Monsoon Countdown May 20 episode — and see how it stacks up with where we are now in the forecast.

Background reading: "Magic of the monsoon: A 'socially and ecologically' important phenomenon for the Southwest"

Monsoon info from Climate Assessment for the Southwest, or CLIMAS, a program funded since 1998 by NOAA.