HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

chumley wrote:Current system has done much better than the models predicted. Snowbowl got 16" overnight, and it should snow all day up there. NWS has upped forecast for Flagstaff to 6-10" and issued a Winter Storm Warning. Looks like the eastern mountains and southern half of the state will miss this storm though.

But interesting developments appear to be in store for the weekend... stay tuned!

Rain here in tri-state area, Needles/Ft. Mohave/Bullhead/Laughlin. I presume it went up to Kingman, Lake Mohave, Lake Mead areas as well, and on south to Lake Havasu. Yuma is not reporting rain, however. That's it for Arizona's West Coast.

Humphreys.

So in case anyone wanted a GrCa weather update...its cold. Its snow. In fact I'm being snowed on as I type this

5 inches in the Village. Here's a photo of upper tunnel on BA. (As of right now, noon!)
Snow as far down as Indian Garden (battleship is white)

There ya have it! Plan accordingly!

I hope we get a little Rain out of this...The Wildflowers need it and so does the Yard...It's finally starting to "spritz" a little here, I was beginning to wonder if I was in an Area that was going to be the "other" 50%....

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/FXC/wxstory.php?wfo=fgz

Impressive and maybe wet totals up in northern AZ! I think Humphrey might be worth it, Patrick.

Fredonia 3"
Jacob Lake 24"

That's a big jump in 20 miles!
(3,500 feet probably helps a bit)

The biggest difference between me and some of you are what you all are willing to drive in!

NO way would I drive anywhere *near* any of that. But I'm from Alabama/Florida, LOL...

@Jim_H
Snowslide Canyon Snotel read 36" when I tried it last year. I'll take 36" again - anything above that is just a bonus.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I don't know that the Inner Basin got as much as Snowbowl reports. Even rounding up, 26 inches is a lot more than the IB snotel reports. Still, the Peaks got some!

I'm with Cleghorn. I'm from SoCal/Hawaii/Tucson. I did live in the snowy area of Arizona for a bit over a decade. I regret it.

@Jim_H
The Snotel report should be higher tomorrow. It says it's current, but I remember it updating every 12-24 hours last time they got snow.
Or I'm losing my mind. Let's not rule anything out yet.

Snowslide Canyon reported another 13" overnight.

I just looked at it, the liquid equivalent came up 2 inches since yesterday, and there is a respectable, but not yet settled, snow depth of 45 inches. Bob's image of the wilderness sign by the trailhead sign-in box had a very thin snow amount, so this helps a lot. Might be more later in the week, so perhaps winter has come to the west (finally?) around the beginning of March. March is a change month, with lots of wind by the end of it, on the mountain. As I recall, anyway. I haven't lived there for 3 1/2 years and it has been 4 years since I was on the mountain in winter.

I'm surprised that the entire weather thread wasn't somehow "lost" during the migration to the upgraded system. ;)

It's still waaaaaaay too far out to get an accurate idea, but the trends are looking good for the weekend. Initial looks lean toward solid precip across central and eastern AZ in amounts ranging from close to 1" in greater phx to over 3" liquid equivalent along the Mogollon Rim and White Mtns. If the snow level cooperates and drops to below the 6kft level or so, it could be a nice snowmaker up high. Finally.

chumley wrote:It's still waaaaaaay too far out to get an accurate idea, but the trends are looking good for the weekend. Initial looks lean toward solid precip across central and eastern AZ in amounts ranging from close to 1" in greater phx to over 3" liquid equivalent along the Mogollon Rim and White Mtns. If the snow level cooperates and drops to below the 6kft level or so, it could be a nice snowmaker up high. Finally.

Thanks for mentioning this. For some reason I was going to rush down to Tucson without first checking the forecast for that area, plus for whichever route I choose to use to get there. So, DUH! I will check it before I decide when to go. Since it had just rained I figured we were done for a while.

Yes, the current, but very changeable model forecast, looks good for most of Arizona and the 4 Corner States, thought not super good for Utah. It is weird the way the Sierra isn't forecast to get much. I wonder what will end up happening.

Model trends seem to have delayed the start of the main precipitation until Saturday night or Sunday. Though Saturday could be really windy if you find yourself on a mountaintop somewhere.

I'm personally feeling a bit leery of this one though. When everything looks so certain so far out, history shows a tendency for a total bust. I hope not.

In other news, there appears to be a follow-up system brewing for the middle of next week, which would be nice.

It has been a pretty strange winter so far in Arizona, warm and wet at times, very dry at others, and then very dry in general in CA except when they had intense tropical rains, and then almost a snow drought for AZ, NM, CA, and UT. Now that we near the end of the season, several storms seem like they might be poised to at least snow on Arizona, and much of Colorado, with very heavy snow potentially for the San Juan Mountains! Sadly, nothing substantial yet for CA, but then who knows? I, like you Chumley, know the models have been way off at times this winter, but hopefully the end of February and the beginning of March are moist and and snowy for areas over 6,000', with good widespread rain totals for much of the rest.

If the weather holds, it appears I might squeeze in 3 powder days in one week. Let it snow! Hopefully coverage will be better than Monday when my board took a core shot from a rock snake. Thank goodness for P tex. The board needs to make it to my REI dividend.