Christmas around here is usually bone-dry. It’s what drives snowbirds to the area year after year. You can get presents and a sunburn) without leaving the Northern Hemisphere)? Sign us up. That is what makes this year’s forecast so unique.

One word: rain.

It’s not the dramatic desert gully-washer or a headline-grabbing storm, but it’s rain all the same. It is the sort that will make the creosote smell sharper, blending with the pine, cedar and cinnamon that usually accompany the holiday. 

Forecasters put our Christmas Day downpour at a whopping 0.35 inches of rain. That is a sizeable soak by December desert standards.

Rain on Christmas around Maricopa is rare enough to earn a footnote in climatology. Historical records for nearby Phoenix Sky Harbor (the closest long-running weather station) show measurable precipitation on Dec. 25 only a handful of times over more than a century. The wettest Christmas on record dumped 0.63 inches in 1994. Since then, there have been only two instances of measurable rain, with 0.16 inches recorded in 2008 and 0.22 inches in 2019. Drops were visually observed in 2021 but not enough to measure. The other 28 years were dry as dust.

Maricopa’s shorter weather record tells the same story. Every decade or so, Christmas gets a few stray raindrops, just enough to darken the sidewalk and remind you the desert can still surprise. But anything more than that is rare.

Which is why this year’s forecast has the feel of a desert novelty. It is a small atmospheric rebellion timed precisely for hams being pulled from ovens.

Meteorologists say the system behind the forecast rain is part of a broader winter pattern moving through central Arizona, notable for its timing more than its strength. 

By Christmas morning, Maricopans may wake to the soft percussion of drops on roofs. It might not even be enough to change your sprinkler schedule. 

The rain is expected to taper off by late Thursday and be gone the following day. The desert, as always, will reclaim its routine. But for those dreaming of a wet Christmas, Maricopa’s holiday forecast includes something that almost never makes the list.