HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

Crisp cool morning here, light snow on mountains. Great for planting trees. Terrible wind last night but good rain.

RedRoxx44 wrote: Terrible wind last night...

Any blowing sand? How is your roof, does it vibrate and rattle? Did the idiots who built your place put in a fireplace that has cold, dirty wind blow down it when it blows hard, even with the flue closed? Did sand blow under your doors and around your cheap windows? Not picking on you, but that is the joy of wind and the dust storms up here.

Black Mesa has snow down to about 6800', and Skeleton Mesa's east slope has it down to maybe 6500', but it is also snowing on it again. It's actually pretty, the kind of thing you can really enjoy from the breakfast area in the Hampton Inn before you pull out and move on.

It must have rained reasonably well last night. Fresh erosion gullies on the dirt and broken glass lot, and I must have altered the grade well enough in the back and now there is a small lake outside of my 6 x 10 patio. Just as well, get some water into the soil.

azbackpackr wrote: encrusted with that kind of thick snow that sticks to everything and breaks branches. Looks pretty, too.

Looks a lot like this...

chumley wrote:

azbackpackr wrote: encrusted with that kind of thick snow that sticks to everything and breaks branches. Looks pretty, too.

Looks a lot like this...

Yeah, but not as deep. It's melting, the sun is out.

Jim_H, your weather page has now reached 100 pages! How many times have you changed its name? Have you kept track?

I have not, but it's been going on for 2 1/2 years, so roughly 4 times a year for each season puts it at something like 9 times that it has been changed.

Melt that snow, send it into the soil or somewhere else. Places like Doney park had less, as would be expected, but Flagstaff had 1.13 inches of precip from the storm. Not bad, for a dry month. I predict this early season storminess will not last, and we will have a dry winter.

It looked like about 3 inches at my house. But it does vary all over town, usually.

The airport had rain, too.

Oh, yeah, there was quite a bit of rain as well.

Dusting over the Catalinas this morning, though it's mostly gone now

.46" here in Tempe. It was a nice surprise too since the forecast was only for .1 to .25. Looks like the whole valley got a little more than the forecast.

Sometimes the NWS doesn't make any sense at all. Why issue a "Hazardous Weather Outlook" only to say that there is no hazardous weather expected?

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PHOENIX AZ
530 AM MST SAT NOV 5 2011

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT. HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS NOT EXPECTED.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...SUNDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS NOT EXPECTED. THERE WILL BE A CHANCE FOR RAIN
SHOWERS SUNDAY NIGHT AND MONDAY.

I went to Flag today to utilize the free service plan we have on my wife's car at the Toyota dealership up there. Absolutely gorgeous drive both ways. Lots of dramatic clouds, sunlight piercing through, snow covered PJ below the rim and on the ponderosa above. Flag was frigid and windy, but yes, I miss it very much. Sorry Jim :guilty: :STP:

9/10ths at my house last nite (51 and Un Hills/Bell area). My garden that I freshly planted last weekend is so

Hiked the Fremont Saddle/Cave Trail today... a bit nippy in the AM; especially with the wind but by noon, it was GLORIOUS out there in the Supes!

The hills at Wilhoit, 15 miles south of Prescott today at 2:00pm. We opted to turn around here instead of riding to Prescott. No snow tires on the Harley.

hippiepunkpirate wrote:I went to Flag today to utilize the free service plan we have on my wife's car at the Toyota dealership up there. Absolutely gorgeous drive both ways. Lots of dramatic clouds, sunlight piercing through, snow covered PJ below the rim and on the ponderosa above. Flag was frigid and windy, but yes, I miss it very much. Sorry Jim :guilty: :STP:

I always liked it more in winter when the snow came and brightened things up. With the sun out and blue sky, the place is far more attractive with fresh snow. Flag isn't a hell-hole, but it isn't for me, and as Liz mentioned, the die hard cold lovers are annoying to us.

I may end up in Flag in the next 3 days, maybe to do Elden.

@tibber
A perfect day for that kind of hiking - we need to do Flatiron soon. I'm stuck inside doing remodeling stuff. Argh!

Headed up to Hells Hole this am for a quick backpack and ran into fog, COLD wind and about two inches of snow at the trail head. Decided to come home, after playing in the snow for awhile. Way too cold to even think about staying the night. Would post a pic if I knew how to post it from my phone.

Yuma is calling me. My friends in the bike club post the temperature and riding conditions every day, since they ride every day, except for the days when they hike. And, the river is there for kayaking and fishing, the canyons in the Gila Mountains hide secret hoodoos and elephant trees, and the wide-open sky is bright and blue. Oh, and don't forget the incredible swap meets, and sneaking into the groves to steal lemons, and from the fields, broccoli and lettuce, and the sounds of doves cooing in the palms and fica trees. Outdoor BBQs, huge RV's, everyone having fun, and lots and lots of Canadians, eh?

Forecast for Yuma today is 70 degrees, 50 at night, with winds about 5-8 mph. Forecast for Flagstaff today is 37, low of 18, with a 90% chance of snow tonight, and winds gusting up to 23 mph. If I can rouse my depressive self to get out of the house I will swim laps at the NAU indoor pool. (Yesterday I didn't go because there was a swim meet.)

azbackpackr wrote:Yuma is calling me. My friends in the bike club post the temperature and riding conditions every day, since they ride every day, except for the days when they hike. And, the river is there for kayaking and fishing, the canyons in the Gila Mountains hide secret hoodoos and elephant trees, and the wide-open sky is bright and blue. Oh, and don't forget the incredible swap meets, and sneaking into the groves to steal lemons, and from the fields, broccoli and lettuce, and the sounds of doves cooing in the palms and fica trees. Outdoor BBQs, huge RV's, everyone having fun, and lots and lots of Canadians, eh?

Forecast for Yuma today is 70 degrees, 50 at night, with winds about 5-8 mph. Forecast for Flagstaff today is 37, low of 18, with a 90% chance of snow tonight, and winds gusting up to 23 mph. If I can rouse my depressive self to get out of the house I will swim laps at the NAU indoor pool. (Yesterday I didn't go because there was a swim meet.)

Ha! I hear you, nothing makes a normal (non-Flag obsessed) person jealous of the lower elevations like a forecast such as that in winter. Most people point out the 105 degree temps when it is 75 in Flag in early June, but I seem to like 105 when dry. I suppose I got "into" winter because of Humphrey and the handful of times I did Whitney in winter, but really, the cold is annoying and the snow is just a nuisance after a few days, unless you're above 9,000' on the Peaks and then you want it thick and to stay for months. While Sedona is close-by, there isn't much to do when there is snow on all of the trails in deep winter and most of the better hikes get snow on them, especially my favorite ones that go up; Bear Mt, Capitol Butte, Wilson Mt, and even the canyon hikes. Around here, Black and Skeleton Mesas have visible snow on them. I don't know how thick it is, but I am not that interested to find out. Winter seemed to come on really, really fast this year. That is why it is nice the Elden ESA melts out fast, as the does the Fatman's Loop. Even Elden may melt out pretty fast, but the upper 500 feet hold snow for a good while. When I had a friend in Flagstaff, he would shovel his patio off so he had a place to go outside. Everything else would have 3 feet of snow on it, but his patio was clear unless snow melt made it icy. We would BBQ steaks and stuff, but it was cold, so it wasn't a snowbird party in Yuma. His dogs liked to roll around in the snow, which was a plus, since it cleaned their otherwise dirty fur off.

Bleak and cold outside. Very humid, too. I started thinking about winter, and snow. Almost thought a snowshoe hike might be fun.

Anyone thinking of Humphrey this winter? I don't know for sure, but I will probably summit at least once. Maybe do something in Colorado, too. Halloween was last week, so all of this feels too early. Due to driving distances, I might camp if I do Humphrey this winter. I'd likely go home or stay overnight in a room, when I travel to Colorado, but I know the ground around the Peaks too well to pay for a room. Breakfast in McDonald's. Oh, yeah! I just hope my 20 degree bag is adequate. I guess that is what layers are for.