The biggest weather event of note for 2022 with some impact on Fountain Hills was a monsoon microburst that hit along the Beeline Highway south of this community. There was also a lightning-caused structure fire in town.

A dry storm hit the night of July 16 producing a lightning strike to a home on Centipede Drive, causing a fire that destroyed the structure.

The next day at about 10 p.m. Sunday, July 17, a microburst caused considerable damage along the SR87 highway between Fountain Hills and Mesa. Power company officials reported it was the most damage they had seen in more than 10 years. The storm flattened a home at the Salt River Pima Maricopa Tribal Community and toppled more than 100 power poles, including major transmission line towers.

The damage impacted services provided by three separate power companies, including SRP. More than 40,000 customers lost power according to SRP. Most were restored by mid-day Tuesday.

The Beeline Highway was closed to traffic for much of the following week, with some restrictions for up to a month as crews worked to rebuild the power lines along the road.

Other than the house fire the previous evening there was little impact on Fountain Hills from the two storms. In fact, no rain was recorded at Fountain Park that weekend. The overall monsoon was somewhat below normal for the community with 3.75 inches recorded between June 15 and Sept. 30. Most of that fell in August, 2.13 inches.

The year’s rainfall was near or slightly below normal with around 9 inches reported falling at Fountain Park.

The heaviest rainfall day was on Dec. 3, when 1.75 inches was recorded. More than two inches was recorded over that weekend at Maricopa County Flood Control District rainfall monitoring sites in town. December was also the wettest month of 2022 with more than three inches or rainfall.

January, April, May and June were dry months with .06-inch of rain in January and .07-inch falling in June. There was no rain recorded in April and May.

Temperatures for 2022 were fairly normal. The highest temperature was 110 degrees recorded on back-to-back days, July 15 and July 16. The highest low temperature was also recorded in that week with 90 degrees the overnight low on July 19. On Jan. 1, and again almost a year later on Dec. 14, the overnight low fell to 35 degrees, the coldest of the year. The temperature rose to just 44 degrees for the daily high on Dec. 20.