Light rain affecting most of central, southern Arizona over the weekend

Light rain is expected to affect most of Arizona on Saturday and until late Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

According to Isaac Smith, a meteorologist at the weather service in Phoenix, the rain has mainly impacted cities across the state, ranging from Buckeye, Phoenix, Tempe to Florence, Casa Grande and Tucson.

"We've seen some light steady rainfall and generally seen amounts (of rain) around a quarter of an inch," Smith said. "Most places down toward Queen Creek and Gold Canyon have seen some locally higher amounts upwards of half an inch to six-tenths of an inch so far."

Smith also noted that the weather service observed "a few" lightning strikes across southern and southeastern Arizona on Saturday but that there is only a 5% chance of thunderstorms occurring over the weekend.

Smith said that the rain is expected to last until late morning on Sunday. Through the rest of next week, the weather service is anticipating that conditions will dry out until Tuesday when there is a 20% of rain, Smith said.

"We can get these linear systems that come through and they'll generate these events," Smith said "So it's not anything uncommon for this time of year."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Light rain falling across central, southern Arizona over the weekend