HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

I was happy to leave my snow shovel in NJ back in 2002

I look forward to some degree of snow in the December to March time frame, but I am looking forward to leaving Flagstaff and not having to deal with snow like we get. It's pretty and can be fun when you aren't working and can summit Humphrey, but if you aren't playing in it, it isn't a great pleasure. Kayenta gets maybe a few inches at a time, so it can still be pretty.



Added:
You know monsoon season is ending when the Tucson NWS office posts the next update for rain totals as being in over a week. They were doing it every few days in August. Check out the Tucson totals. Impressive, but then most other locales were well below normal. Still, they did alright considering the first 6 months of the year and the winter.

I fly up to North Dakota often and it reminds me of why I perfer the desert now. I was up there last December and it was -25 F at noon.

Jim_H wrote: Check out the Tucson totals. Impressive, but then most other locales were well below normal. Still, they did alright considering the first 6 months of the year and the winter.

The Tucson total was inflated by a freak monsoon last Thursday that dumped almost 3 inches of rain at the airport (official recording station) in a very short period of time. The storm track was narrow and stationary and much of the metro area received little if any rain that day. Nonetheless, we did much better this summer than the Phoenix area in general.

One impressive Tucson-area rainfall stat is Mt. Lemmon where over 17 inches has been recorded since June 15. Here are some rain stats from around the Tucson area for the 2011 monsoon season through last Thursday:

My last week in Wisconsin, it was -13 every morning. (So said the bank.) I wore a windbreaker. Six months here,I turned into a total wuss. 60 and I am dying ... plz:

Same here I enjoy traveling to different places, but I enjoy coming back to nice warm AZ. I am done with iving in cold wet snowy winters.

SkyIslandHiker wrote:

Jim_H wrote: Check out the Tucson totals. Impressive, but then most other locales were well below normal. Still, they did alright considering the first 6 months of the year and the winter.

The Tucson total was inflated by a freak monsoon last Thursday that dumped almost 3 inches of rain at the airport (official recording station) in a very short period of time. The storm track was narrow and stationary and much of the metro area received little if any rain that day. Nonetheless, we did much better this summer than the Phoenix area in general.

One impressive Tucson-area rainfall stat is Mt. Lemmon where over 17 inches has been recorded since June 15. Here are some rain stats from around the Tucson area for the 2011 monsoon season through last Thursday:

Yeah, that storm was something. One of my posts from last week mentions the record rainfall of that day. Most places were not that great, but wow, the mountain sure did well. That has to help out a lot given the bad winter, and the expectation of another dry la nina this coming winter. Maybe it won't be as bad as last year.

It has been noticeably cooler in the mornings and evenings here. In fact, last night, my AC never came on and the house temp. when I woke up was 78.

Gotta love it when those night-time temps finally break - that's when you know fall is here.

We had a tornado on the San Francisco Peaks. I ran into the down trees yesterday around 9700' and just went up hill to avoid crossing any more of them than I had to. Seeing just one location, I though it might have been from a sudden downdraft, but they say tornado.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/News/AzSnow ... adoPDF.pdf

Odd those "quick stats" don't give the year, but I'm assuming it just happened when we were having all those storms? Was this along the main trail or did you use one of your routes?

Damage crosses the summit trail around 9700'. Maybe they should have posted the year, but I think they assumed people would know it was this year since it just happened. You can't miss the damage on the trail. ON Thursday, the trail was completely blocked for a good distance. Knowing the trail enough, I just started uphill to the next switchback, so I don't know how wide the path is.

That's pretty cool. I wonder if the "Save the Peaks" folks will give up now that they know that even mother nature is working against their cause! :STP:

There has been a lot of tree damage this year on the Peaks. In winter, the ice storm brought down a lot of trees, and when the snow melted out, they were blocking the trail, and now this event. It was pretty bad on Thursday, but only if you wanted to cross it. A nice stand replacing fire would do the entire west side some good. Burn everything over there.

Man, did summer go fast this year? Maybe it doesn't seem that way in Phoenix, sort of how our winter dragged on well into May up here, but I feel like summer flew by. It seems like just yesterday I was in Tucson for the Mt Lemmon hike, and now we are about a week away from the fall color review on the Peaks.

The thing that concerns me most is having to wear shoes all the time. Guess I'll go to Costa Rica...

Jim_H wrote:Man, did summer go fast this year? Maybe it doesn't seem that way in Phoenix, sort of how our winter dragged on well into May up here...

Yeah I'm over it already. Seriously? We're gonna get into October basically no days under 100.

Hurricane Hilary!
Will she or won't she? I'm hoping for something just short of handing out sandbags at local fire departments. I'm expecting partly cloudy.

You mean like Tropical Storm Norma in 1970.

The Flag NWS seems to be leaning more towards drier conditions, which is fine by me. After all the rain we had, I can do without anything. I would prefer to have lots of sunny mild days for a while. Maybe a storm in middle to later October. I want to do Lavender Peak Sunday or Monday, so anything for the next week will be unwelcome. However, the Grand Junction NWS office is now favoring increased moisture and storms for the same period, so who knows. Maybe I should take down my hike and just go when it looks doable. I was afraid October would be too late, maybe it already is.


Flag has new 30 year normals posted.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/News/newnorms.pdf