The Big Picture by Lennie Peterson for July 26, 2024

It does occasionally rain in desert areas, usually during the spring. The pattern is that desert areas usually get one period where they get heavy rainfall for a short period of time, sometimes resulting in flash floods then several months without rain.

Phoenix monsoon season is basically July through end of September and to a lesser extent December and January. Not Spring. Although we have had a few summers lately with virtually no rain therefore a drought even by desert standards.

Weeelllll Desert: arid land with usually sparse vegetationespecially : such land having a very warm climate and receiving less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of sporadic rainfall annually (MW)

Drought: a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water.

So not equivalent, less than 25 cm is not abnormal for a desert, but a lack of even that much in a desert would be a drought and raise the chance of fire. Deserts are not always the Great Erg.

Nothing stoopid about that at all. As the other commenters have noted, even deserts have wet periods.

It’s just that the ground can’t absorb the rain to a degree that will help it in the best possible way