Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[cathymocha]

I remember 1983 flooding, but from a Phoenix angle. They declared three one-hundred year floods that season. But, as I remember it here...it seemed like winter and early spring.

Anyhow, the old bridge to Tempe that crosses the Salt River had double lanes in either direction and the wait to get across was sometimes three hours. By the time the third one-hundred year storm arrived the folks at ASU were worrying about the research and files in the basements, everyone feared that the earthen dam upriver (forgot the name) would break and flooding would destroy all the records.

It was intense, but the Tucson storm sounds worse. There were trees uprooted, general havoc and flooding Valley-wide. The Salt River was full and raging....

[JoelHazelton]

I'll take a pass on big rains this weekend. I'm hiking Havasupai... rather have pretty predictable, dry weather for that one.

I'm with you on this one... I'm planning Pacheta Falls w/ my girlfriend. If I was on my own I'd welcome the weather, but I don't want to make the significant other deal with it.

[writelots]

I loved all the stories my neighbors used to tell about the '83 Tucson flood. I lived on Limberlost next to the Rillito for 10 years, '89-'99 (Vista Del Norte). The neighbors had witnessed all sorts of things in '83. It was before the Rillito had been channelized and cemented in.

...Since then many bridges have been rebuilt and the drainage system in the streets has been improved. The Rillito has been channelized, for better or for worse. Most times, yeah, you can go catch sand trout in the river bed, but sometimes it really runs big. The '93 flood was pretty neat to see, also--I was there for that one. And they say it ran at 20,000 cfs several years ago, in the same flood that messed up Sabino.

The '83 flood is the reason we have all of our "river parks" - the county realized it was cheaper (and better in many ways) to buy the land adjacent to the river and use it as a buffer zone than to try to install the expensive flood control measures that the Army Corps of Engineers demanded as a result of the flood damage. It's a model that's been studied nationwide as an example of intelligent and sustainable planning. And we got some cool urban trails out of it! The channelization is an unfortunate reality, but these days we're getting beyond that technique as well. The key to solving the issue is to make people realize that riverside real estate is not the high-value commodity that they imagine, but is instead a vital, natural flood control system that they may only see work once in a lifetime.

I was actually in Tucson for the '93 and '06 floods, both of which were impressive in their own right. The '06 flood was a monsoon flood that remodeled Sabino pretty extensively. Fortunately, however, it was only on the Rillito, so damage to the human infrastructure was minimal. It's when both our rivers flood that that things start to get so spectacular. Of course, the changes to the canyons near the Sabino drainage is still pretty incredible.

Sorry - got on a subject that's dear to me. If anyone wants to see some impressive images of the '83 flood, they're archived here: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Tucson/image ... ood83.html

[azbackpackr]

Well, look at that! Vista Del Norte is in this photo: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Tucson/image ... 83/018.jpg

It's the square with trees, left side of photo. It's a huge mobile home park in a sort of eucalyptus forest. It was a nice place to live when my kids were growing up.

[chumley]

Finally some "normal-ish" monsoon activity. The past few days have shown nice shower activity in the Yavapai County mountains, across the rim and into the White Mtns. Even a couple of nights with some storms popping up in the deserts. You know, the way it should happen through July and August! Hopefully we can keep this pattern going for a week or two until things dry out for autumn, typically around mid-September. Then we'll need a wet winter, which hopefully the el niño will provide.

[Jim]

Hopefully, but we'll see. The last predicted el niño was during the 2006-2007 winter. It started out OK that autumn but then died out in December and the rest of the winter and spring was extremely dry until the 2007 Monsoon.

[joebartels]

Farley is dead it ain't happening!

[chumley]

I like when the map looks like this. (1-week in time).

[azbackpackr]

Will it never end? This has been a weird year. There is some dry weather in the White Mtns. forecast, starting tomorrow! Yippee! Today started out nice and then clouded up very quickly and now it's actually chilly, and pouring rain! I'm sitting home nursing the tail end of a bad cough.

[Dschur]

Was one of the worse storms in Payson on Saturday Sept 19th. We had rain so hard and hail (even though it was only about 1/4 inch at our house) But the lightning was one of the worse storms this year. It hit at least a dozen times around our house with the transformer being blown two houses down on our streeet. We were with out power for 3 and 1/2 hours or so. But it did cool down the temperatures 68 or so and kept it that way for the afternoon.

[Jim]

The summer monsoon is gone. Maybe it will be active next year. Now it's on to winter. Obviously, we'll get some rain before we get snow, but that isn't too interesting. When will we get the first lasting snows of the 2009-2010 season? Will Snow Bowl be open under highly favorable el nino conditions that drop 4 feet by Thanksgiving Weekend? Will this winter produce like we want it to?

[azbackpackr]

I sure hope so! I didn't get to ski last winter. We were living in Yuma. We came up over Valentine's Day to check our house and bring a load of stuff home. There was 2 feet of snow at Pole Knoll, where I usually xc ski--we took a cruise up there to look at it but I didn't have the skis in the car. Then we came home at the beginning of March. There had been a warm spell which melted the snow. The rest of the winter it was cold--it was cold through May, in fact, but no snow ever piled up again like that.

This year I hope for the El Nino winter! Maybe I will try downhill lessons this year. Every year I always look at the price of lesson, lift ticket and equipment rental and figure I had better pay the propane bill instead.

I notice you recycled the thread, just changed the title!

[joebartels]

I notice you recycled the thread, just changed the title!

It's the only hope to beat out guns and nudity... go weather!

[BobP]

Snow Bowl be open under highly favorable el nino conditions that drop 4 feet by Thanksgiving Weekend?

This gets my vote .

[chumley]

I prefer snow dumps in late-winter/spring.

First, the November snows get all the folks in Flag to buy season passes while they can still get them for a discount. Which keeps the mountain a little bit more crowded all winter with people who just drive up for a couple hours after class or whatnot.

Second, if there's more than a foot or so of snowpack, I have the toughest time finding the perfect Christmas tree, because the best ones aren't right along a plowed highway, and I'm not a big fan of getting stuck in the snow 30 miles from a paved road.

Third, the late season snowpack helps extend the fire season, especially if the temperatures stay down for a while. And then when it warms up in May and June, there's still plenty of moisture and everything is green.

But then again, I like it when the peaks get a nice dusting while the aspens are still gold.

[Jim]

Where do you look for a tree, and what species do you prefer? You might try the area near Mormon Mt, or any area close to the Rim since the higher precip levels promote douglas and white fir. You could also look on the Peaks if that is legal, and take a sub-alpine fir or engelmann spruce, but I suspect it is not. The blue spruce in the west fork isn't very blue, but there is another option. Where do you like to go? If we get a huge dump I might be able to help out with ideas to get the perfect free tree.

[chumley]

The permit areas are quite confined and the species of tree you can cut depends on which permit area you are in. There are no tree-cutting areas on the peaks. I did find a nice blue spruce a couple if years ago in an "all species" area. Sure beats a piñon or chaparral tree!

[writelots]

ah...the ol' Christmas Manzanita Bush. A time-honored chaparral tradition.

Of course, here in the old pueblo, I'm partial to the Christmas Soap Tree...

[Jim]

We're forecast to have our first frost or freeze over the next few days. We'll rebound, but autumn is coming in like clockwork. I forecast snow and an open snowbowl by Thanksgiving weekend.

[BobP]

Yeah..Today is the 1st day of autumn.