HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

Living on the Edge, with my Head in a Cloud, lol On and off light Rain last night, but the Wind! Probably sustained 40 with gusts excessing 60 all night. Thankfully, the Wind finally quit this morning. The Sun made a brief appearance at 5:45 am and disappeared for good at 6 am. It's been raining ever since. I'm camped literally on the Edge of the Rim and visibility is steadily getting worse. I can't see anything below 50 feet and on top, visibility has dropped to a couple of hundred feet at best. I think the Weathermen's prediction of .19 Inches up here today was extremely conservative, lol

@Outdoor Lover
The rim is in it's own weather world. I've seen forecasts for 1" or more there. I think that's on target. It's also typically very windy. If you move half a mile off the rim it might be much more pleasant.

Which Rim ? North Rim, East Rim, South Rim, Mogollon Rim or the Naegelin Rim ?

This increasingly reminds me of 2009, when May storms became June storms. A cool moist early June gave way to a dry hot summer. I saw a prediction for an about average Monsoon season from the Tucson NWS, yesterday, but we will see. I still prefer about average to only slightly below normal, and not the near failure of 2009. Will the El Nino last to next March?

@Nighthiker
Nantac Rim

Mogollon Rim. I'm not moving, that would require folding up a huge wet Tarp and throwing it in the Car and I refuse, lol The Temperature has risen a balmy 4 Degrees in the last 2 hours to a toasty 49 degrees, lol And just for the hell of it, let's throw a little Hail, and some much closer lightning and thunder into the mix. Probably will shatter an Inch of Precip up here today. Glad I got a good Hike in yesterday. Today looks like a Solitaire Day. And btw, Tonto NF Fire Restrictions go into Effect today, lol

Quarter-sized hail is in the forecast. That might destroy your tarp if you get caught in that.

We got a little over 1/8" of rain overnight in AJ. Might be a record for this date, really loud thunder overnight too.

chumley wrote:Quarter-sized hail is in the forecast. That might destroy your tarp if you get caught in that.

I thought Tropical Storms were supposed to be Warm, lol

Just came home in Payson and noted a lot of lightning up along the Mogollon Rim from Strawberry over to Woods Canyon.

Right now it is 9:15pm and it is pouring with thunder and lighting and my cat hiding under the bed. Rowdy is also very nervous as the thunder is very loud and the lighting bright.
Oh I live in Deer Valley.

Flagstaff had what was probably a record, of 1.07" of rain for June 5.

We got very little rain here in Williams.

.7 overnight in Payson including a thundershower at 4:30 am, raining off and on since.

The strange spring of 2015 continues ... It looks like the bulk of the hurricane moisture will stay in western Arizona, and the atmosphere is going to be too stable to fire off major storms, but there should still be some rain in Phoenix ... for the second time in a week! (I'd be curious to know if that has ever happened in June before!).

There's even a hint of more rain following it up next weekend, though only in the mountains. Even still, it should drop desert temps back into the 90s again, another anomalous stat for June.

So Blanco will not be like Norma in 1970 ?

@Nighthiker
I don't know. I wasn't alive yet. But Jim_H should pipe in since he has a photographic memory of past weather patterns and events.

@Nighthiker
No, primarily because this event won't feature the interaction with a massive cold core system from the Pacific NW like in the Labor Day Storm of 1970. Everything phased together just right for that incredible event. As part of the post storm investigation, one of the things that was done was to verify the report of 12 inches of rain in 24 hours at Workman Creek, which once we did the check on the calibration of the recording gauge up at Peterson Meadow, lead to the establishment of a new state record for 24 hour precip 11.40 inches. That broke the existing record from Crown King and stood until the 1990s, when it too was surpassed. This served as my introduction to the Sierra Ancha Mountains.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/assessments/ ... 201970.pdf

Here is another report on the event focusing on the hydrologic aspects:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/2052/report.pdf

Here is a photo of me and friend Jon at the weighing rain gauge at Peterson Meadow above Workman Creek Falls in the Sierra Ancha Mountains taken September 27, 1970. This was about three weeks after the historic rainfall there, and about two weeks since my first visit to check the calibration. I was so impressed by the area I had to go back with my friends. I actually made 3 trips there that fall.

So that's how they calibrated gauges in 1970.