In a September 11 broadcast, state climatologist Nancy Selover explains Arizona's wet summer and its effects on the ongoing drought conditions.
"Up until this past week we haven't had much precipitation at all," says Selover, also a senior sustainability scientist. "We were actually very much down below 50 percent. Now we've caught up and we're just about even but that's only because of these last storms."
However, Selover says what really matters is how much precipitation hits the Verde and Salt river watersheds. Phoenix depends most on these areas' reservoirs that supply groundwater.
"We'll take everything we can get any time we can get it," says Selover. "But in terms of ground water and water resources the winter snow pack is really what we need."