well, I can tell you about the dryness of Arizona. It gets hot and dry for most of the summer. But Phoenix has the lowest number of days of precipitation of any major city (According to the weather person, Las Vegas averages one more day than we do....) After all we are "The Valley of the Sun"! Right now it is dry, but there have been some flood warnings off and on for the last couple of weeks. Right now we have a cold front coming through. The other night we had windstorms, several large trees down and so forth. One thing about the desert.... most of our "rivers" are actually riverbeds, until there is spring/summer rain and snowmelt run off. As a kid, when we traveled it was always a thrill to driver over a river that actually had water in it.... and did "all" the time. Unheard of for us.
We do get floods on occasion. But usually because of all then asphalt and not great storm drains. And flash floods in the washes/rivers. But you generally get plenty of warning for them.
It is definitely dry. We generally don't have to worry too much about mildew and such. But we pay in other ways. There are trade offs with everything.
Pati, > >