HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

First snow fell at the South Rim at 9:30 this morning!

Snowbowl reporting up to 4"

Peaks are lookin' good!
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/webcam/late ... hp?wfo=fgz

It melted off quickly, because by the time we rolled into Flag from Lake Mead yesterday afternoon, the only snow remaining was up very high. In the lower Canyon, Thursday and Friday we rowed with our umbrellas up, except when it was really windy on Thursday. The rain was very spotty in that area, downstream from Diamond Creek.

It's Frankenstorm! Is it a bad thing that I wish I was in Jersey or the Appalachians? Something about a Cat-2/3 hurricane colliding with a cold-front and turning into a blizzard just sounds awesome to me!

@chumley
You are defiantly in the wrong profession..... Start practicing in front of a green screen

There are other plusses and minuses. Hopefully this will stop some of the ridiculous coverage of minutiae related to the election by creating something else to talk about. But then again, there will probably be "end of the world" hype by the east-coast based media since they don't realize that other people exist elsewhere.

chumley wrote:It's Frankenstorm! Is it a bad thing that I wish I was in Jersey or the Appalachians? Something about a Cat-2/3 hurricane colliding with a cold-front and turning into a blizzard just sounds awesome to me!

We're not looking forward to it. Last year at this time, we had Snowtober, 6" of heavy wet snow when there were still green leaves on the trees, resulting in many thousands of power line breaks. There were something like 14 breaks between us and the substation two miles away, which itself was cut off by many more breaks from the rest of the grid. It was one of two week-long outages we had last year. It was like camping in our own house.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/fgz/News/WB_OUT ... layer.html
Yelp, a revised prediction based on decreasing El Nino likelihood means AZ, and my new home in New Mexico, probably won't have the impressive totals of past big years. I seem to recall the winter of 2009 as being the only neutral year while I was in AZ, so maybe 2013 winter will resemble that year? Equal chances, only time will tell.

Tahoe is already open for this weekend ...

The lake? The city? They close?

Squaw Valley and a place near Donner Pass I don't recall the name of ...

chumley wrote:It's Frankenstorm! Is it a bad thing that I wish I was in Jersey or the Appalachians? Something about a Cat-2/3 hurricane colliding with a cold-front and turning into a blizzard just sounds awesome to me!

Not a bad thing Chumley.........but I do know (from living near the CT shoreline for 36 years) that these storms can be really destructive. I remember Hurricane Gloria in 1985 (cat 3) and Hurricane Bob (strong cat 2) in 1991 AND the "Perfect Storm" of 1990 which was dubbed "the Halloween Nor'easter"....Blizzard of '78, Blizzard of '93 (Storm of the Century), 1994 Christmas Nor'easter, and the 100 inches of snow that fell in CT in 1996. I was done after that and moved to a drier climate. These were pretty spectacular weather events. When Hurricane Bob hit in August 1991 we had just had 4 inches of rain the previous week and then Bob hit with another 7 inches of rain so the ground was saturated......there was massive flooding and an 80 foot cherry tree on my property came crashing down due to 100 mph winds and almost landed on my house. Scary stuff.

big_load wrote:

chumley wrote:It's Frankenstorm! Is it a bad thing that I wish I was in Jersey or the Appalachians? Something about a Cat-2/3 hurricane colliding with a cold-front and turning into a blizzard just sounds awesome to me!

We're not looking forward to it. Last year at this time, we had Snowtober, 6" of heavy wet snow when there were still green leaves on the trees, resulting in many thousands of power line breaks. There were something like 14 breaks between us and the substation two miles away, which itself was cut off by many more breaks from the rest of the grid. It was one of two week-long outages we had last year. It was like camping in our own house.

Be safe!!!!!

TT

@Trishness Thanks! After the last one, I got the propane heater set up, so at least it will be bearable when it turns cold. Our power company expects power outages to last up to 10 days. That's been the case for lesser storms, for which they predicted two or three days loss. NJ is already doing voluntary evacuations on the shore, which turn mandatory on Sunday. One precaution that is truly unprecedented is that state is dumping water from five of the big reservoirs, which it has previously refused to do in similar situates. They'll be down 5 feet by the time the rain starts, although I doubt it will make much difference. The power company just finished trimming trees on our street two days ago, again something that won't matter when whole groups of trees go down.

Trish I grew up in CT just a couple miles from the sound and my parents still live there. I have personally experienced all but the most recent storms you mention (cause I was here I AZ) - except the '78 one. I know the kind of destruction they can bring. But I'm a little bit like those tornado storm chasers... Despite the damage that can be caused I am fascinated to see the raw power of nature in action.

Of course I also wish safety for all the people affected. But I'm all for filling the bathtubs with water and hunkering down for a few days and seeing what Mother Nature brings.

@chumley I can relate to that, too. When Hurricane Ike came through (10" of rain here), I had gear-testing festival. As long as the winds aren't too high, I like to be outside. I'm less excited about the prospect of a big snow, although I did recently inherit a snowblower.

Looks like Flagstaff got to 20 last night, maybe the high teens. Alamogordo got to at least 28. A lot colder than I had hoped to experience. Tucson was still in the very high 50s. New Mexico is definitely a lot colder than Arizona, despite being on the same latitude, and only a couple hundred miles east. I guess it's the altitude and the continental air flow?

The differences between what I have seen of the Chihuahua desert in New Mexico and the Sonora Desert in Arizona are quite striking. Initially, I thought precipitation patterns were the main reason, but I think cold has a lot to do with it as well. The highly alkaline soil/rock has to be a factor as well. There is a big difference between weathered limestone and weathered granite or other non-calcareous rock types and the nutrients that are available to the plants, even if only minute. Basically, very small and scrubby creosote bush are the only plants here, aside from grasses. I haven't even observed Ocotillo on the flats. The creosote that is here, looks to have suffered during the drought of the last decade. That is mostly precipitation related, but I still think of 28 as cold.

New Mexico has the same altitude diversity as AZ does, but from what I've seen of NM, (and that's quite abit), I think that generally, most of NM is higher in altitude, than AZ. At least the desert parts. It's like "high desert" in alot of areas over there.

I spoke with my parents this morning and all is well with them. Once again, their street is one of few in their town that still has electricity (seems to happen that way a lot). Since most homes there run on well-water, electricity is very important, because without it, there's no water due to the pump not operating. Water is sort of important not just for drinking and cooking, but for flushing toilets! Their neighborhood features underground utilities, which certainly doesn't make them immune to power failures, but does help somewhat. The power outages are affecting 75% of town, and several neighboring towns are at 100% power failure.

As expected there are countless downed trees and it's going to take a lot of time to clean things up. Like they always do, my parents have opened their home to friends and neighbors who need a place to stay while the power is out. They are somehow surviving without phone/tv/internet , but the cell network is operating ok near them.

My dad's business is located in Queens and he violated the Connecticut closure of all highways and drove into the city to check on the building there. It's not in a flood-threatened area, but there is no power and there was some equipment on the roof that was damaged in the wind.

I have friend in northern New Jersey who is the head "arborist" for Springfield Township (or Springflood as he calls it since it's in a flood zone). He hasn't replied to my text this morning, but I know was planning to be out cutting trees and clearing the roads for days to come.

Some of the photos from back east are crazy.