Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[outdoor_lover]

@chumley
You're actually pretty lucky. I waited in line like that at Minneapolis/St. Paul and after an hour, they realized that they were going to have to "de-ice" the plane again before takeoff, so we then left the runway and motored over to the de-ice area and then got back in line...What should have been a 4 hour flight, gate to gate, took 7 hours.... But, at least it wasn't completely cancelled...

[Jim]

Since we're talking about flying now: I last flew in mid-February of this year. Flag to Phoenix to an eastern location, well and back, too. It was nice being in Flagstaff, and while I have flow in and out of there many times, this was the first time I was on a Jet leaving (never coming to) Flagstaff. Usually the prop takes you south over Payson, but we left and went west off the Rim just out over Sycamore Canyon, so I had a great view of Sedona, the Verde and Prescott Valley, Mingus Mountain, and everything else down to Phoenix. it was great. I had a nice 3 hour lay over in Phoenix, and was happy to hang around on the roof of the parking garage watching planes and sunning myself. Had a really nice flight out, too seeing all the features we flew over and the distant mountains south to the Sky Islands, the Gila, and then clouds over the flat parts.

[cactuscat]

Coming down pretty good up here today - maybe three inches expected. The roads are crap.

[Hippy]

@chumley So because I was curious what the beans a "nor'easter" was, I checked out the weather out in "the far east"....you're crazy, you know that? That was madness out there, I would've bunkered down until summer!

[big_load]

@The Hippy You're missing out on all the fun. Although we've had three little ones already this year, we haven't a serious winter Nor'easter for quite a while. They can last for three days and dump three feet of snow. Unfortunately, winter weather patterns are very stable here. We'll get two storms a week, and they'll tend to follow the same track for most of the winter.

[cactuscat]

I just enjoyed shoveling snow by moonlight ... think I am actually starting to dig this winter thing!

[azbackpackr]

I just enjoyed shoveling snow by moonlight ... think I am actually starting to dig this winter thing!

Better you than me. I'm in California right now, and loving it! Can't wait to have an opportunity to move away from Eagar!

I have lived in the snow areas for about 13 years, (mostly Eagar, but also in Flagstaff) and I STILL usually forget to go out and get my car ready to drive it to work in the morning, so I'm often late to work. It takes a bit of doing. First I let it run for quite awhile with the defrosters, while I get busy with a broom, and then the ice scraper. That gets me kind of warmed up, and then I go back into the house and let it run some more.

It really throws me when there is no snow and then I go out and the windshield is all iced-up. Still have to go through all that work to get it ready to drive.

I don't shovel my front walkway all the time, but occasionally I do. Sometimes I use salt, as well. Other times I just tramp on it, and smash the snow down.

My heating bill at my house is going to be horrendous, even though I moved my bed into the dining room and am living in just the living room, kitchen and dining room. I am leaving the four bedrooms and three baths unheated. (I have a space heater for the one bathroom I use.) To say I am tired of this movie would be an understatement.

[Jim]

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/FXC/wxstory.php?wfo=rev
An interesting graphic from the Reno NWS office. A lot wetter this December, which is sort of funny as they had been calling for drier than normal this month. Maybe the rest of the winter will be lame? Curiously, while just about everywhere else on the 2012 map is wetter, Arizona was wetter in December of last year. Something odd about those storms dripping out of the great basin and missing the Sierra.

[chumley]

So it's not just my paycheck where decimals matter. I missed the decimals on that graphic and was laughing that parts of AZ have received 20-40 inches of rain in December! Oh, that's 2.0-4.0 inches. Much more realistic!

[Jim]

Well, a lot of the northern Sierra had over 20 inches, that is 20.0 inches. If we had that, I can only speculate on how bad the flooding would be. I mean if Arizona had that, sorry. On the other hand, that reminds me of the big January 2010 storm. I'm sure a number of people would be happy to see half of that storm's totals.

[JimmyLyding]

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/FXC/wxstory.php?wfo=rev
An interesting graphic from the Reno NWS office. A lot wetter this December, which is sort of funny as they had been calling for drier than normal this month. Maybe the rest of the winter will be lame? Curiously, while just about everywhere else on the 2012 map is wetter, Arizona was wetter in December of last year. Something odd about those storms dripping out of the great basin and missing the Sierra.

These storms haven't been missing the Sierra Nevada: http://www.weather.com/sports-rec/ski/c ... w-20121228

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the rainy season plays out. It's amazing how much colder it seems when the humidity is above 50%, and I hope it goes away soon.

[Jim]

Jim, as you can see in the preceding sentence, I was not referring to this December, but was talking about the storms in 2011, which left Arizona wetter in December of 2011 than in December of 2012. I was saying there was something odd about those storms we had last year, that dropped down out of the Great Basin, completely missed traditionally wet areas like the Sierra, but somehow ran into moisture in Arizona and produced higher totals last year. They were also very cold systems, as I was in La Plata Canyon between two of them and remember local Colorado radio stations talking about the cold as extreme for early December and how it was more like early January than December. That was a fun trip, though the snow was poor, I still had a good time even if the La Platas and San Juans (in January) seemed to have missed almost all of the snow last winter during the first half. I thought about journeying up to Colorado next month to snowshoe in alpine tundra, perhaps get a peak but really just to be out in the snow, but I don't want to. Not this year, I like seeing places get what they need, and want some folks to post some nice Peaks pics, but personally I want 80 degrees.

[JimmyLyding]

Got it. This is my 3rd winter here in the Bay Area. 2010-11 was exceptionally wet, 2011-12 was fairly dry, and this season is starting off like gangbusters. I'm not sure if that's normal for these parts, but it seems weird to me.

[Jim]

I like to look at Mammoth Mountain's snow totals and previous winter totals which are listed by month. Going back over the years, it is very common to have a very wet month followed by a very dry month. Actually, December of 2010 as wet, while January was dry and February was on the drier side as the storms didn't pick up again until the end of the month, and then March was very wet. You can see that sort of thing a lot going back over the years. In fact, it seems that from looking at their records, a wet December is not uncommonly followed by a dry January, so I expect that January will be a poor month. However, there are cases of both being wet, so who knows. I'm still hoping for at least one, maybe several good storms to drop down the coast and move in over LA and progress over AZ, dumping on the Peaks, during January. That would help the Peak's backcountry and hit the Sierra as well.

http://www.mammothmountain.com/Mountain ... onditions/

[Dschur]

We had 8 inches of snow in Payson on New Years Eve Day... we took a drive up the hill to Strawberry and they actually only had 1-3 inches there... just outside of Payson North on 87 it dropped fast. Even at the East fork of the Verde wasn't much...

http://schursastrophotography.com/digip ... 23012.html

[Nighthiker]

Missed out on that storm, was planning on spending New Year's eve in Payson.

[Jim]

Light snow in the high desert of southern New Mexico this evening, stuck to some cold surfaces, too. I have to remind myself I'm about as high as Sedona, so it can get pretty cold here. Funny how it seems like southern New Mexico should be Arizona like, but it isn't.

[chumley]

Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Cold, Cold, Cold! If you're headed out this weekend be prepared.

Temperatures will be below freezing even at Sky Harbor Saturday and Sunday morning, and in the 20s in the cooler valley locations. In the mountains lows will be in the single digits and may drop below zero. The highest mountains may get as much as 6" of snow too.

This is the coldest airmass to affect the state in two years.

[azbackpackr]

This is not good news. I already have broken pipes at my house, and flooding. The neighborhood plumber owns me at this point. He has been at my house for three days. Water heaters (two of them) compromised. Flooding in one of the bedrooms. He had to cap off a sink because we are going to put off fixing the broken pipes that are behind it inside the drywall. New faucet on shower.

Once I walk away from here I am going to throw away the windshield ice scraper and never ever go a cold place again!

[chumley]

Sorry to hear about your freezing pipes. That can be a real mess. Hopefully you can get things into some state of repair fairly quickly.

I saw this morning that Sky Harbor may have 4 consecutive days of freezing temperatures for the first time since 1983. I think I prefer that more than two or three winters ago when it dropped to 18 in some valley spots and the 20-acre park near my house in Tempe was an irrigation-fed skating rink.