September 2026 Golf Weather in Review, and What October Holds

September is the hinge of the golf year in the desert Southwest: the last month of summer heat and monsoon storms, and the start of the overseeding season that leads into the winter high season. Here is how the month actually turned out at the official weather stations for six of our golf regions, compared with the 1991–2020 normals, and what the Climate Prediction Center expects for October.

Temperature

• Phoenix (Sky Harbor): average high 100.1°F, close to the normal of 100.5°F, with 21 days at 100°F or above.
• Yuma: average high 101.3°F, right on normal, with 22 days at 100°F or above, the most of the six stations.
• Las Vegas (Harry Reid): average high 95.6°F, about 0.7°F above normal, with 7 days at 100°F or above.
• Tucson: average high 92.9°F, about 2.2°F below normal, with only one day at 100°F.
• Flagstaff: average high 74.0°F, right on normal.
• Reno: average high 81.0°F, about 2.8°F below normal, the coolest month relative to normal of the six.

The hottest day of the month was September 10 almost everywhere: 109°F in Phoenix, 107°F in Las Vegas, 101°F in Tucson and 86°F in Flagstaff. Phoenix nights stayed very warm, with an average low of about 81°F, which kept early-morning tee times the most comfortable of the day.

Rain

• Phoenix: 1.05 inches, almost twice the normal 0.57 inches, nearly all of it from storms on September 16 and on September 28–29.
• Flagstaff: 3.50 inches, almost twice the normal 1.84 inches, with measurable rain on 13 days.
• Tucson: 0.80 inches, about 60% of normal.
• Yuma: 0.32 inches, about half of normal.
• Las Vegas: 0.30 inches, close to normal.
• Reno: just 0.01 inches, against a normal of 0.21.

The month's wettest spell came at the very end, when the remnants of Hurricane Polo combined with a low-pressure system over the West. Read more in our article on the end of the 2026 monsoon.

The October Outlook

The Climate Prediction Center's outlook for October, issued on September 30, favors above-normal rain for southern Arizona, with the wet pattern concentrated in the first half of the month. It also notes that, with a strong El Niño and a very active eastern Pacific hurricane season, a late tropical storm could still affect the Southwest later into the autumn than usual.

For temperatures, the outlook leans slightly toward above normal in parts of Arizona, and gives the highest chances of above-normal temperatures in the region to western Nevada, which includes Reno. For most of the interior West it shows equal chances, because the models and the usual El Niño patterns point in different directions.

What It Means for Golfers

• Southern Arizona: be ready for a few more wet days than usual in early October. Soft ground and cart-path-only rules are likely after heavy rain, and rain can shift overseeding reopening dates; see our article on Arizona's 2026 overseeding season.
• Phoenix, Scottsdale and Las Vegas: October is normally when highs fall back into the 80s, the start of the best golf months of the year.
• Reno: a dry, warm October would extend the high-desert golf season; see Golf in Reno.

Monthly outlooks give the odds, not the weather on your tee time. For that, check the hour-by-hour playability forecast for your course on our Arizona and Nevada golf course pages, and see how our forecasts compared with what happened on our track record page. If rain is in the forecast, our guide to golf in the rain covers what to pack.

Sources: daily observations and 1991–2020 normals from NOAA's Applied Climate Information System for Phoenix Sky Harbor, Yuma MCAS, Harry Reid International, Tucson International, Flagstaff Pulliam and Reno-Tahoe International airports, retrieved October 1, 2026 (figures for the last days of the month are preliminary); Climate Prediction Center 30-day outlook discussion, issued September 30, 2026; storm cause from FOX 10 Phoenix.

Photo: "Arizona sky after the monsoon", by AZ Mountain Frog, licensed under CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized from the original.