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So last winter was rather mild and the one before that was wetter than usual and the year before that it was colder than usual. So anyone have a crystal ball or a farmers' almanac and can make an educated guess as to what this upcoming winter will be like?

Well, so far it has been colder than usual this winter, although this week it has warmed up a little. The snow is actually melting during the day this week! Still in the teens every night this coming week, with a low of 12 forecast for Sat night. Everyone in town has been commenting how cold it has been, so I know it's not just me...

This is Phoenix, I think we've had winter already.

I'm betting on a poisonous inversion layer making me feel like I live in a house with 10 cats. Oh wait....

I voted other: wetter and colder.

I went to California over the holidays for a week, and stupidly didn't turn off the water in my house. During the time we were gone, temps were in the single digits pretty much every night, and very cold during the days, too. Knowing how my old house is, I did worry while we were gone. We'd never had a burst pipe before. Thankfully, the weather did not warm up at all while we were gone, so the pipe that did burst behind the toilet didn't thaw out until we started heating the house after we got home. And we got the plumber there PDQ, and learned a valuable lesson as well. The lesson is this: Sell the damned old crumbling house and move back to a warmer climate! (Oh, but I really would miss the skiing!) Well, anyway, I am going to have the plumber install a shut-off valve so I don't have to shut it off via the city's valve when we go on short trips.

azbackpackr wrote:I went to California over the holidays for a week, and stupidly didn't turn off the water in my house. During the time we were gone, temps were in the single digits pretty much every night, and very cold during the days, too. Knowing how my old house is, I did worry while we were gone. We'd never had a burst pipe before. Thankfully, the weather did not warm up at all while we were gone, so the pipe that did burst behind the toilet didn't thaw out until we started heating the house after we got home. And we got the plumber there PDQ, and learned a valuable lesson as well. The lesson is this: Sell the damned old crumbling house and move back to a warmer climate! (Oh, but I really would miss the skiing!) Well, anyway, I am going to have the plumber install a shut-off valve so I don't have to shut it off via the city's valve when we go on short trips.

I have done that before, but the water dept. doesn't like me doing it myself, they want me to PAY them to do it.

Something like that happened to us once. Our house is on a hillside. The water line comes into a crawl space under the front stairs, next to the garage. We got home from vacation on a -4F day (after a week of such days) to find the steep driveway an inch thick with ice. We walked up on the lawn to the garage. Somehow the garage door was not frozen down, but when we opened it, there was a perfect skating rink inside. We've also had the water line freeze underground and three or four times had individual pipes freeze in the walls.

Hmm, I thought it was going to be another wet one back in early December but so far it seem like another mild one...

So far the new year has been, and is looking to be, pretty dry for a while. It could change, but not any time soon. December was above average, but 2009 was the 4th driest year on record in Flagstaff with only 11.65 inches the whole year. About 1/2 of normal. Hopefully, this winter "el nino" doesn't end up as a repeat of the 2006-2007 one. December was wetter than normal, but the rest of the winter and spring was very dry until the monsoon in the summer of 2007.

I'm okay with a dry January (it doesn't melt fast enough when it's so cold) as long as we get some good accumulation in February and March. Whether or not that will happen, who knows. I was kind of scared about the rain forecast today as I was worried about a repeat of last January's rain storm that absolutely killed the snowpack.

azbackpackr wrote:Sell the damned old crumbling house and move back to a warmer climate!

Want to trade towns with me?

Preston Sands wrote:

azbackpackr wrote:Sell the damned old crumbling house and move back to a warmer climate!

Want to trade towns with me?

Hmmm... Safford....what it has: good community college, Mt. Graham, Gila Box, lots and lots of hot springs, easy access to Chiricahuas...a Walmart instead of an Alco... What it also has: yucky summers, lots of agricultural haze, a lot of the same type of small-town ignorant inbred rednecks I already deal with here...

I was in Safford a few years back and kept asking local people how to get to the Gila Box area, and none of them had ever heard of it. I finally found someone who had, who gave me directions. When I drove out there to look at it I was astonished to find that the entrance sign to the area is only about 20 minutes from town. So what do they do for fun in that town, if they never drive around on the back roads? Very weird.

But actually, I sort of like the area. Just for fun, what do you have to trade me for my 2800 square foot 3 bedroom, 3 full bath, with attached mother-in-law apartment, fixer-upper house, with garage and half acre, with ditch irrigation not deeded but available, take over mortgage of $464 per month, taxes at $1000 a year, conveniently located two blocks from Central and Main in Eagar?

I know I'm a bit late but can I cheat and cast a vote for "wetter than usual"

Yeah, I think we will allow that!

azbackpackr wrote: So what do they do for fun in that town, if they never drive around on the back roads?

Meth?

ouch!