HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

30 degrees colder today and raining. Snakes took the day off. I'm still trying to figure what garter snakes eat besides each other at this time of year. Anything big enough to eat a rodent can still make a living.

Meteorologists (and the more vocal internet imposters) are nearing the same mental state as children a few days before Christmas. Put out some milk and cookies ... it might rain!*

* definition of rain varies by source, but may include up to a 70% likelihood of 100% no rain.

These are the days in which we now live.

chumley wrote: ↑Nov 14 2023 4:02 pm Meteorologists (and the more vocal internet imposters) are nearing the same mental state as children a few days before Christmas. Put out some milk and cookies ... it might rain!*

* definition of rain varies by source, but may include up to a 70% likelihood of 100% no rain.

These are the days in which we now live.

I hope the widespread panic doesn't shut down the airport on Thursday.

Wasn't last fall/winter/early spring supposed to be in a La Nina pattern when we had all that rain and chilly temps ( for here)??? Now it's supposed to be El Nino where we could get a lot of rain?? Ha ya sure---

@RedRoxx44
Don't be surprised if this winter is below normal to well below normal. I expect it.

I'm wearing goloshes and kayaking in the back yard ... 0.06" of rain overnight!! As pathetic as this is for rainfall, it is the single largest event that has happened at my location since last spring. So I'm not unhappy about it.

@chumley
Maybe you ought to throw a party or something.

Great downpour at the Neal estate. Deb commented that there is a whole generation of birds that haven't experienced rain.

It's been raining much of the day in Santa Fe and the Four Corners. It looks like rain all day tomorrow, too.

We skipped the Backcountry part of our Petrified Forest visit because it was a sea of mud. I didn't see how much rain fell elsewhere in AZ, but the NE corner got a good soaking, along with most of NM.

@big_load
https://water.weather.gov/precip/

screen shots of the 7 day totals. the bright green is 1/2 to 1 inch, dark blue 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Basically nothing in southern Arizona.

@Jim_H
Too bad, it was quite a soaker up north. At least it wasn't snow.

These weather folks--- La Nina isn't really La Nina and El Nino isn't really El Nino. Why don't we just say " we don't know but we will take a wild guess"
https://arizonaweatherforce.com/2023/10 ... rd-freeze/

RedRoxx44 wrote:These weather folks

I wouldn't classify the self-titled Master General Meteorologist Raiden Storm (not a single word of that is real) as a weather folk. The Weather Farce is an ongoing trainwreck of entertainment though. The gift that keeps on giving.

@RedRoxx44
It will be interesting to see where the next 4 or 5 months end up. Last winter was supposed to be very dry and ended up record wet for many places. This winter the authorities claim wet, and based on prior experiences my gut tells me drier than normal. These guys are saying above average for Tucson and northern Mexico. We'll see.

So long as next summer isn't dry, again, a wet winter for drought struck places like the Santa Ritas would be beneficial. One hopes mild between storms to melt the snow! I want to get out.

An impressive showing with .31" at casa chez chum ... the first time I've seen greater-than-forecast totals in at least 8 months. I was hoping to see a little more snow in the higher elevations, but will settle for these last two events priming the desert wildflowers for a spring bloom.

It's not as simple as La Niña means a dry winter while El Niño brings a wet winter. One of the big reasons California and the Southwest received a lot of precipitation last winter and spring was because the very strong La Niña that had kept us dry for 2 years weakened rapidly. It was still La Niña, but the rapid shift away from it helped prevent the formation of a high pressure ridge in the NE Pacific that would keep storms from reaching the West Coast. So we got wet.

That damned ridge of high pressure, dubbed the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge by climate scientist Daniel Swaim, gave California warm and dry winters and springs before transitioning to smoky summers. June-uary can be a lot of fun as long as one can ignore its ominous implications.

I'm mostly ready for some colder temperatures. And precipitation. While it is tough to complain about sunny days in the mid 70s, it's not exactly ideal for the overall status of things around here.

We really could use a day or two of temps in the low 40s with a decent long duration rain event in the desert, and a couple feet of moist snow up high. Maybe around Christmas, as the long range models are showing potential at least for California. I'd enjoy a warm up with some melting after, so I can still do some hiking in the Ritas, but it's super dry out there.

In the last about 30 years we seem to only get good precipitation due to an anomaly in the weather pattern. (some exaggeration implied) It wasn't always this way but whatever. The changes are relatively minor.