HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

Saw snow to the ENE on the mountaintops. Not sure what mountains they were, but were the the east of Coolidge. Locals down here complaining how cold it is, while I wear short sleeve shirts still.

@Rob: That's the Pinals! Probably.

It's cold here, but not like it is in Arizona apparently. We made it through the Great California Windstorm of 2011 last week with zero damage, but I read that Southern California had a little bit of serious damage. Our Spring which ran from May through August transitioned into a 3-week-long summer in late August & early September, then autumn (more like Indian summer) lasted until about 2 weeks ago. Now it's cold, and the weekly rain will pummel us until April.

Strangely, though, the Sierra, a lot of Colorado, and I think Utah, have been dry so far this wet season. Seems we have yet to have a classic wet winter storm come down the coast and dump heavy snow as they usually do. This last series came out of the Great Basin, was more or less cold and dry, and dropped far to the south. It's been good for SE AZ and NM, but the watershed areas are on the dry side so far. It's early, so no big deal.

Jim_H wrote:

azbackpackr wrote:
Today's weather in Puntarenas: http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/78760.html

The temperature is nice, but that dew point is sky high and nasty. It was 70 when I checked it. Very moist. I'd rather have 105 with a dew point of 12, like June in Tucson.

OK, well, each to his own. I lived in Hawaii for 8 years and never disliked the tropical weather or the humidity. But I like the dry desert, too. The worst thing about humidity is that your towels don't dry on the towel racks very quickly, like they do in Arizona.

Ah, but we talked about that on the last Elden hike. I would consider LA to be humid. I think a summer dew point of 60 is oppressive, unless really hot, because that lowers the overall humidity.

Anyway, only zero in Flagstaff overnight. The NWS forecast for tonight is -6 in Flag. I wonder if that will be achieved, or not. If you want to see what I was talking about with the -4 Sunday AM, http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobe ... aw=0&dbn=m


I wish I knew what Kayenta was. They forecast 7, but they report temps from Page, which is far away and much lower. We really need a reporting station from our Airport on the internet, or the high school, or something. Do I dare buy a rain gauge and thermometer and possibly a humidity gauge?

Looks like Monument Valley HS (Utah) has a Weatherbug station. Twenty miles away and only a little lower in elevation, the numbers shouldn't be too different. (Unofficial as they may be). Now if somebody can explain to me why there are two different "Monument Valley" high schools within 20 miles of each other, that would be interesting...

http://www.aws.com/full.asp?id=MNMNV

That makes no sense. I almost wondered if it is actually the one in Kayenta, but the web address suggests there are 2 of them. MVHS is in Kayenta, and I was surprised to learn that after 4 weeks of living here. Even though it is across from where I work, I just never cared enough about the school to notice it's name. I guess Kayenta Regional sounded weak, so they decided to have 2 schools with the same name close by. They are across state lines, though.

According to the internet, the Utah one is in Blanding, UT, which is quite far away.

I think it's actually right here. There's even photos on google with the MVHS titles on the football scoreboard with MV in the background.
http://hikearizona.com/map.php?QX=1273

That is correct, I found a news article that was misleading. It is not in Blanding. That really wouldn't even make sense, being so far from the valley.

And if it was only 18 there last night, I doubt it was 7 in Kayenta.

One is in Arizona, and part of the Kayenta USD. The other is in Utah, and part of the Blanding USD.

Back to the weather... ;)
This system has been a doozy for us here in Vegas.
My co-worker's fence blew down last week from 100 + mph gusts, and last night it reached 27 F in our backyard.
Others at higher elevation may laugh, but that's very cold for us here.
On the plus side, we did get some rain in the valley and snow in the Spring Mtns.

I was amazed when driving through Holbrook today how much snow they got. But when I got to St. Johns, Springerville and Eagar, there wasn't much at all. It did snow over here but apparently not as much as in Holbrook. But that's a rare occurrence.

Back to Flag in the morning. Nice sunny forecast all week.

It never got below zero in Flag last night. I don't think anyone but the forecasters are upset by that. The forecast for single digits in Kayenta was for this past night (Tuesday night), not two nights ago, though it is unlikely we made that last night, either. Still cold, though. In La Plata Canyon, it was extremely cold. My nose hair was twitching from the freezing air when it was only 6 PM. So, it may have been in the lower single digits there. That is a canyon in a mountainous areas, so things are a little different.

coanbru wrote:@azbackpackr
I think I'd rather deal with -5, than Tropical Cyclone Alenga that is forecast out there

Tropical Cyclone Alenga--turns out when I went back to look at Weather Underground for Puntarenas, Costa Rica, that Alenga is in the Indian Ocean. It seems to be that if you are searching for a tropical location on Weather Underground, they tell you about the tropical cyclone.

This is where I'm going:

It looks like it might be too humid there for Jim's taste. ;)

Oh, well! I don't notice humidity all that much. People in Tucson, they whine and moan in August when it's summer rainy season. To me, it feels good.

By the way, calling the rainy season "summer monsoon" was started by the news media. Anyone who grew up in Arizona, who is over 50, probably will remember that it used to be called "summer rain" or "summer thunderstorms." Furthermore, calling the desert dust storms which are common during very dry windy times "haboobs" is a more recent "bright idea" from our not-so-bright local media. I really hope this latest one does not catch on.

There are other words I dislike very much when applied to the Southwestern United States, such as using "trekking" instead of "hiking" or "backpacking." But that's nothing to do with the weather. I dislike it so much I don't even say "trekking poles." I call them "hiking poles." The term's best useage is if someone is paying porters to carry all their gear on an ecotour "trekking" trip in Nepal. Let's leave the term over there in Nepal, with the yuppies and New Yorkers and Eurotrash, where it belongs.

I've been a "hiker" all my life.

There are other words I dislike very much when applied to the Southwestern United States, such as using "trekking" instead of "hiking" or "backpacking." But that's nothing to do with the weather.

How about a walkabout :GB:

azbackpackr wrote:By the way, calling the rainy season "summer monsoon" was started by the news media.

I'm no fan of the media, but the North American Monsoon is a meteorological term which describes the rainy season you speak of. It's quite likely that in everyday speech people spoke to their friends and neighbors about the "rainy season" but anybody with scientific understanding of the season knew it's name. Media sometimes talk to people who actually are experts in the field they are reporting on, and that is probably how the term monsoon became more commonplace.

Haboob on the other hand is probably a bit of a stretch...

If you want to go old skool Arizona, I suspect that you also remember when homes were refrigerated?

BEEBEE wrote:

There are other words I dislike very much when applied to the Southwestern United States, such as using "trekking" instead of "hiking" or "backpacking." But that's nothing to do with the weather.

How about a walkabout :GB:

First go back and look at my edit. As for walkabout, I think it's great, as long as I'm going to be walking around in the Australian outback. Otherwise, it also would be an imported term, and unnecessary, when we have two perfectly good terms, hiking and backpacking, already. And "dayhiking" which is a more modern term, but at least is homegrown.

And you know, there already are millions of Americans who don't know what the term "backpacking" means, so why confuse them further? I have even seen it on here recently, a newbie to the site said he was going "hiking and camping with his gear" or something awkward like that. Duh, uh, you mean you're going backpacking?