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• <br />• <br />• <br />Monthly Precipitation Patterns <br />Precipitation patterns throughout the year are dramatic. Winters tend to be rather dry with most of the <br />precipitation in the form of snow. In March, as the influx of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico increases, <br />precipitation levels usually increase. In May and June inflow of moisture from the southeast reaches a <br />maximum and most precipitation is in the form of thunderstorms, but peak precipitation is delayed until later in <br />the summer. <br />In July and August moisture from the Gulf of Mexico may decline, but even greater moisture flows <br />into the area from the south and southwest on true monsoonal winds created by a thermal low over the <br />southwestern U.S. and the Bermuda High to the east. In some years this monsoonal flow is very intense and <br />compressed from east to west resulting in heavy and sometimes torrential thunderstorms. <br />In September this flow of monsoonal moisture declines as the pressure systems to the southwest and <br />southeast become less intense and tropical Pacific moisture usually declines. On occasion, hurricane remnants <br />from the Gulf of Mexico or the eastern Pacific may create prolonged, very wet periods in September and <br />October, but these events are rare and cannot be counted on. By late October moisture from the south becomes <br />minimal and precipitation shifts to a more polar pattern which is accentuated by moisture from the North <br />Pacific brought in by storms originating in the Aleutian Low. <br />3 <br />