10/15/2026
Fountain Hills is participating in a County Hazard Mitigation Plan ⚠️
A hazard mitigation plan (HMP) is the representation of the jurisdiction’s commitment to reduce risks from natural hazards, serving as a guide for decision makers as they commit resources to reducing the effects of natural hazards.
Today we are taking a look 👀 at:
💧 Flood/Flash Flood: Flooding that results from precipitation/runoff related events, not from flooding due to dam and levee failures. The three seasonal atmospheric events that tend to trigger floods in Maricopa County are:
🔹 Tropical Storm Remnants: Some of the worst flooding tends to occur when the remnants of a hurricane that has been downgraded to a tropical storm or tropical depression enter the state. These events occur infrequently and mostly in the early autumn, and usually bring heavy and intense precipitation over large regions causing severe flooding.
🔹 Winter Rains: Winter brings the threat of low intensity; but long duration rains covering large areas can cause extensive flooding and erosion, particularly when combined with snowmelt.
🔹 Summer Monsoons: A third atmospheric condition that brings flooding to Arizona is the annual summer monsoon. In mid to late summer the monsoon winds bring humid subtropical air into the state. Solar heating triggers afternoon and evening thunderstorms that can produce extremely intense, short duration bursts of rainfall. The thunderstorm rains are mostly translated into runoff and, in some instances, the accumulation of runoff occurs very quickly resulting in a rapidly moving flood wave referred to as a flash flood. Flash floods tend to be very localized and cause significant flooding of local watercourses.
