The skies are dark and damp, but here it is with just three weeks left in the year and rain arrives to wash away some of the gloom that has been 2020.

Storm clouds that moved in overnight brought rain that Valley residents awakened to Thursday morning. By 1 p.m. one of the Maricopa County Flood Control District rain gauges in Fountain Hills had collected half an inch (.51 inch on Cloudburst Wash at the Adero Canyon Trailhead).

The last time there was half an inch of rain measured in a day here was March 18 (right at .50 inch). From that date through Thursday – 266 days, through the summer monsoon, the total rainfall for Fountain Hills has been barely more than a quarter inch (.275).

March by the way was pretty good with 2.86 inches falling in nine days between March 1 and March 18.

Through 1 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10, the rainfall for the day around town was one-third to a half inch. The total at four of the nine monitoring sites including the Palisades Boulevard Fire Station was .35-inch. At the water tank on Golden Eagle just inside the Eagles Nest gate there was .43-inch, and along Hesperus Wash just inside McDowell Mountain Park north of the Fountain Hills Preserve there was .47-inch.

The station inside McDowell Mountain Park received .35-inch and on Asher Hill just west of Rio Verde there was .39-inch collected.

Enjoy, after Thursday, the National Weather Service is forecasting cooler temperatures, but no more rain in the 10-day forecast.