Atmosphere Comparison

[Jim]

The endless chatter of weather.

[chumley]

1.86 in Tempe at 7pm. That's a 22 hour total since it started at 9pm.

I did hike today and didn't freeze. It was a very pleasant 47. So much better than 77 if you ask me!

[big_load]

There was about 3" of snow in Flagstaff by 8:30 this morning and rain, rain, rain all the way to NM. The Painted Desert was covered with standing water. A baseball field near Gallup looked about 2 feet deep.

[kingsnake]

1 1/2 inch as of 3PM in N. Phx 101 and Cave Creek and it's still raining. My garden is very

I hope the dozen new low water plants my yard guy put in on Wednesday don't mind ...

[hikerdw]

East Mesa is getting a lot of rain, but luckily not in a downpour. I have the pump in the pool going as I try to keep the water level from breaching over. Since the rain started Thursday evening, going by the water catchments I have placed in the yard to collect water for the garden, it looks like we have received close to 3.5 to 4 inches of rain, and it is still raining

I have a hike planned for tomorrow so I am breaking out the gore-Tex boots

[azbackpackr]

Finally clearing up here in Valley Center, California. Hoping to finish my MA homework, which is extensive, (due to moving, exhaustion and subsequent illness, I got very behind, and had to beg my profs for more time), and get myself out on the great trails around here pretty soon! Palomar Mountain is about half an hour from where I sit!

[rwstorm]

@azbackpackr
Palomar Mountain? A little cold up there now...that would be a nice summer destination. I plan on going back. Anza Borrego looks good in winter.

[RedRoxx44]

Nice steady rain here, moved some of my potted porch plants out to get a drink. Great prep weekend for another Tgiving Grand Canyon Parashant trip which is morphing as fast as my research allows into not what I started with -----a photo of a 1000 foot redwall narrows with little to no beta---did get ahold of photographer and he was very coy, befitting a special destination----into an approach full of dirt roads, petroglyphs, mines, badlands, more canyons to see. Will be one of those go and come back and want to go again. But, getting the packing on---carry 10 gal of spare gas, water, extra tools etc. Plug kit, air compressor, jump starter etc. And vertical gear for any special mine shafts I guess, Brian has a particular interest in one area. Poor Yota will be full.

[rwstorm]

My 3 day storm total precip here in SW Tucson is now up to 2.03 inches as of 0840 Saturday! Not bad.

[tibber]

2 1/4" as of Sat AM, full bird bath too . 101 & Cave Creek area.

Hoping to hit 5057 Sunday.

Have a safe and great trip Letty!

[azbackpackr]

Palomar doesn't get as cold as, say, Mount Lemmon. It is often a pleasant place to go in fall, winter or spring. It can be pretty hot up there in summer, but is cooler than, let's say, Escondido. I'm from San Diego, and to my mind, you hike in fall, winter and spring, and you surf and sail in summer. Kayaking you can do all year...

[Jim]

Some very impressive rain totals in SE AZ, and around the state, with Mount Lemmon reporting over 5 inches of what I assume was rain. Shame the change wasn't earlier and snow wasn't heavy up there, but rain is water, too. Yes, rain is water, too.

I expect washes are really running, and rivers are up. The Gila is supposed to get a decent rain/ snow mix, and the Sacs are forecast to have up to 14 inches over the highest terrain. 1 to 2 inches of snow, down in the basin. Snow and ice might fall on the Needle (Organ) and shut that down for a while. I was hoping for that once more this year.

Seems almost all of Arizona's low desert got > 1/2 an inch of rain, with most places seeming to get over 1 inch. That should start spring wildflowers, correct?

[kingsnake]

I expect washes are really running, and rivers are up.

After 10 hours of rain, Board Creek, in the mountains a few miles south of Prescott, just had a few puddles ...

[azbackpackr]

Fall showers bring spring flowers, at least in the SW deserts. Any rain that falls after New Year's tends to produce grasses. October and November rains usually make for some nice spring displays.

LCR was up to over 3K yesterday as it passed through Holbrook and Winslow, so there must have been a considerable gully-washer in the White Mountains. And Grand Falls would have been nice to see.

The Rillito and Santa Cruz never spiked so high in Tucson, however, with the Rillito barely getting over 300 cfs, so I guess that a lot of the rain is soaking in, instead of running off. I did hear that about 500-800 cyclists were stopped by Sabino Creek, couldn't get across it, during today's El Tour de Tucson.

Tonto Creek (near Roosevelt Lake) did spike up close to 2K, though. That creek has seen some huge water a few times in recent years, though.

[Jim]

Guess it all depends. It has been very dry the last couple of months since monsoon season ended, so maybe most is soaking in. That's good, too. Still, with 5 inches on Mount Lemmon, something up there has got to be running.

[azbackpackr]

Oh, yeah, that's why the cyclists couldn't cross Sabino Creek. And maybe the Rillito will flow for a few days until the runoff is completed.

[Jim]

I just measured 3 inches of dense wet snow on a concrete block wall behind my house where the elevation is about 4400'. Still snowing lightly. I imagine there is much more in the Sacs. Glad I got my hike in yesterday. Since September, I had volunteer sunflowers come up and grow to about 4 feet tall. They are bent over and covered in snow, probably frozen dead.

Wolf Creek Ski reports a storm total of 37 inches of snow, and a 100 inch base.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/psr/pns/2013/No ... tour_2.png
Widespread rain around the Valley.

If you play with the rainlog site, you can see where the storm sat and trained rain over Arizona, the accumulations are impressive, and as soon as you move east of that where rain only started to fall as the storm moved east, they are less impressive.

Liz, 4 day totals for the Yuma area are pretty impressive. With 1.7 and 1.3 inches reports out there.

Sunrise reports 28 inches and has a few lifts open. Snowbowl hasn't updated since yesterday or Friday, but reports 24 inches of natural new snow, and a projected opening day of Friday the 29th, but they are making it now, too.

[azbackpackr]

It's good news for the land, for sure. We may complain of the chill, (I know I do) but I also know how good it is for the droughty deserts and mountains.

[chumley]

2.55 storm total in my yard. I'm not gonna complain about that.

[SpiderLegs]

That was a good rain system over the weekend. Did a long run in Estrella Mountain Park and every drop of rain had soaked into the ground. Not a single pool of water or trickle of water anywhere on the trails yesterday morning. My plants really perked up from this storm.

[imike]

Snow still falling... temps headed for low 20's tonight. I've dug out my winter gear, about to head out the door for some snowy adventuring! Unfortunately, warming up tomorrow.