Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[PatrickL]

That's freakin' awesome!

[PaleoRob]

Snow on Picacho, Newman, and Table Top this afternoon. Hopefully I can get some pics tomorrow.

[DarthStiller]

The views from FH today were spectacular. snow line is very low. 4Peaks covered, snow on the flatiron and weaver's needle and on the Goldfields even. Later in the evening there was sleet in mesa collecting on the cars.

[Jim]

Looks like Ski the Lemmon is back open with a pretty decent base, and Snowbowl picked up at least another 18 inches. Pretty good rain totals around the deserts, too. Should make those already moist soils a little wetter. Naturally, the precipitation died as it entered New Mexico. But, that's to be expected as that is what things do when they enter New Mexico. They die.

[Jeffshadows]

This is nuts. You know things are out of whack, weather-wise, when you wake up to snow near the base of both Wasson and Pusch Peak... :FG:

[rwstorm]

that's to be expected as that is what things do when they enter New Mexico. They die.

You might, I don't.

[chumley]

that is what things do when they enter New Mexico. They die.

I love your optimism and positive outlook on life! It brings joy to the heart and warms the soul. : king :

[Jim]

If it can be said that the place one visits the most, and enjoys the most, is the place one should live, then I should be in the 10 corridor about 300 miles or so west of where I live now. Coming back last week was depressing, from what was a "cold" day by local standards in Arizona, with what I considered normal to mild temps, green new growth, birds calling, various mountains capped with new snow, and a vibrant economy, to a flat waste on 10 east of the the state-line, brown and dead everything, towns with virtually no economies like Lordsburg, Deming, and Alamogordo where the place I work at is practically belly up and now cutting everything, to the best thing in the area being the Organ Mountains where the closest thing to life is a wind blowing through the rock, this place seems dead. That said, the sentence was a bit of joke, albeit dry and sarcastic. Hey, at least the Gila has a had a decent amount of winter precip, but it intelligently faces (drains towards) Arizona. Virtually every storm moving through Arizona this winter has been fairly moist and left some nice rain and snow. As in enters NM, is lifts north, dries, and does almost nothing for down here.

BTW, Coolidge has been discussed a little in another thread, and some don't care for it. I actually thought it seems pretty nice. I stopped at the McDonald's in town at the mostly abandoned plaza and found the tall Mexican Fan Palms swaying in the cold winter breeze refreshing. The monument is there, and overall it seems very pleasant to the east heading to Tucson.

[chumley]

the sentence was a bit of joke, albeit dry and sarcastic

As was mine.

[Jim]

Well, I figured. What for someone use to living on ice and use to settling.

[azbackpackr]

the sentence was a bit of joke, albeit dry and sarcastic

As was mine.

I am so surprised to find my friend, Jim, waxing sarcastic. How unlike him. He is usually so upbeat, so full of fluffy sentimentalism and maudlin emotions.

[Dschur]

I measured 7 inches of snow on our deck when we got home on Wed. The worst of the storm seemed to be in the middle of the state again like the one the 30 of Dec when we got 8 inches and Flag only a couple.. from the reports on the news Flag only got 3-4 inches out of this storm and Prescott only a couple. The mountains were covered all the way down on the way home yesterday. With the worse driving conditions from the Sycamore Creek below Sunflower to the Mt Ord pass.

[Jim]

Ski the Lemmon says they got 20 inches, which is actually more than Snowbowl. Anyone ski there to say how it compares? Either way, with the rain and snow this winter, it ought to not be a bad spring in the Catalinas.

[Nighthiker]

Quite the snow flurries while at Dead Horse State Park, though I think it snowed more at home in Gold Canyon.

[Jim]

So, we're getting close to the end of meteorological winter. After a wet December, January was dry for the west coast, primarily California and the Sierra Nevada. According to the Hanford NWS office discussion I read, this is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Arizona on the other hand, has done fairly well, and surprisingly picked up a lot of moisture in a relative sense. It is still below normal over much of the state. Snowbowl has done really well, especially compared to last year. Partly, this is due to the big late January rain storm which delivered dense wet snow above 9,000', and then the more recent February powder storms.

Initially, this winter was thought to be an El Nino, with thoughts of the wet 2010 season coming to mind. However, by October or so, it was clear a neutral pattern was developing and forecasts for wetter than normal turned to not really knowing, and now drier than normal. Compared to last winter, we (Arizona, not New Mexico) seem to be way, way ahead, even in areas of the state which are below normal like the SE part and the White Mountains. Still, I have noticed that this and last winter are different from the previous ones I observed, 2006 to 2011.

In previous winters, even if they rapidly lifted north and missed Arizona except for the extreme northern parts, there was a general pattern of lows tracking down the California coast from the Gulf of Alaska, moving into California somewhere between San Francisco and the Mexican border, and then moving over AZ or the Great Basin before hitting the Central or Southern Rockies. Perhaps it's just poor memory that these were so common, but this tended to favor the Sierra, the southern CA ranges, and then everywhere else that followed, the Wasatch of Utah, the Mogollon Rim, the western slope of Colorado, or the Sangres and San Juan of the upper Rio Grande.

Granted, a drought is a drought. The Las Vegas NWS office had a story about a "Snow Drought" in the Spring Mountains, back in January. I don't know if conditions have changed, but they basically had historically low precipitation levels and I guess the rain in January was a rare bird. Curiously, with all the talk of Global this and Global that, and with the pattern over the last 2 winters, I wonder if the recent pattern is merely a previous one associated with other droughts, or something newer.

In more recent years, a number of storms have entered over the PNW, and moved south through the Great Basin, largely ignoring California, and resulting in dry snows for northern Arizona (this most recent one) and surprisingly a decent rain for southern Arizona (1/2 an inch of rain in Tucson the other day) as it draws in moisture from the southwest off the Pacific. Last year, that seemed to be the norm, and this year has continued the pattern to some extent. Colorado has managed to get some snow from these storms as they move east over Rockies, so it hasn't been as bad as last year. Curiously, the big January storm actually moved north from SW of the Baja of Mexico which was part of why that storm was so wet and mild. While western NM does seem to get some moisture in the Gila, virtually none of it reaches the Rio Grande in southern NM. Even the January one moved northeast over AZ in to CO, largely skipping NM altogether.

So, anyway, I wonder about the whole "normal pattern" I recall from the previous 5 winters, with lows moving down the coast and into California. I'm curious if anyone is aware of a similar pattern of lows moving down the Great Basin rather than off the Pacific Coast, in previous droughts. Was a blocking high more common and did storms just miss the SW USA completely, or is a few hundred miles of low tracking oscillation a relatively common occurrence on a cyclical pattern? Also, last year a "March Miracle" occurred and a big wet one developed and moved inland in the more normal way, resulting in a large March Dump for the Sierra and western Arizona (the Peaks got it's only real wet storm of the year). Might we expect that this year?

[chumley]

Might we expect that this year?

I've learned not to expect anything except whatever comes.

[Jim]

OK, fine, for the remainder of the winter? Speculating, that is. Mostly, I'm wondering about the past. What about that?

[chumley]

What's past is done and can't be changed. I look ahead. :STP:

[Jim]

Remembering the past helps us understand the future. We have too short a memory in this country and jump to conclusions about the future far too quickly.

[chumley]

jump to conclusions

Best idea ever!