HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

It's raining cats and dogs right now here in Flagstaff. 4:30 a.m. It has been raining much of the night. It will be interesting to see if it actually does turn to snow later on today, as forecast. It's all supposed to be cleared up by Friday night, which is a good thing, since I'm taking an NAU Outdoors class this weekend. Meanwhile, I can sit inside for the next couple of days, study, and maybe cook a pot roast or soup.

One concern here in Flag is flooding in the Timberline area on the far east side, (off 89) which is below the Shultz Fire area. Yesterday's newspaper said that flooding is expected there during this storm.

Well, I'm thankful I don't have to run around in the dark, in the cold pouring rain, schlepping sand bags. I hope they do okay over there. The county did a big flood control project over the past year, and it should help.

Sky's blue, no snow. So far. Yesterday's forecast called for rain today until 11 a.m., then turning to snow. Instead, it rained all night and stopped in the early morning, and then got sunny. Our diehard weather forecaster is still predicting snow this afternoon. Ha! We'll just see about that!

I do believe we'll have the hard freeze tonight, though.

Flag will most likely freeze tonight. Kayenta is forecast to freeze or frost tomorrow, so you'll be cold tonight. Summer is over. Sigh

Jim_H wrote:Flag will most likely freeze tonight. Kayenta is forecast to freeze or frost tomorrow, so you'll be cold tonight. Summer is over. Sigh

We went over to my friend's house, who's out of town, to pick the rest of the tomatoes and arugula, etc. We're taking care of her garden while she's gone. Her beets and carrots should be ok, though.

Looks like you got to at least 28 last night, and had a good deal of precip from the storm. Flagstaff is less than 6/10 of an inch away from normal for the calendar year, well over for the September 1 water year, and just 1/100th over for the month of October. I don't think it's like that at all out here in the high desert, or most other locations around the state. Maybe Kingman and the NW part of the state?

Don't know cold we got, since Kayenta has no reporting station, but I would say middle 30s, as a guess. It was cold last night at 8 PM. Don't care for that much. I wanted to do Lavender :-({|= but I might have been too late even if the storm was a week out. Cold is not something I want to get used to. Not yet, anyway.

There is good news, though:

TUESDAY THROUGH THE END OF NEXT WEEK...STRONG HIGH PRESSURE IS
FORECAST TO AFFECT THE WESTERN U.S. DRY CONDITIONS WITH
TEMPERATURES AT OR ABOVE NORMAL CAN BE EXPECTED.

From the Flagstaff NWS.

This is why I was so happy to leave NJ behind in 2002. Now I just fly to cold places and spend at the most a few days there.

A very light dusting of snow on my car this morning. Yesterday afternoon, when we could finally see the bottom flanks of the Peaks, snow level was pretty low, but still well above the town.

It melted off in the day, but I could see snow or sleet on the upper parts of Skeleton Mesa yesterday morning. Couldn't see Black Mesa, as there were clouds on it.

Looks like you got down to 27. Cold, but not too cold considering it's been in the teens by this point on previous years. By the end of the week, you'll be back to mild fall conditions.

If the 3 feet of Snow at Wolf Creek Pass Ski area, and the ski area being open is any indication, the snow on Lavender is enough and will be there for a long enough period to prevent me from getting over there and summiting. Oh well. I guess I'll have to go back to Flagstaff for Elden.

Wolf Creek Ski Area in Colorado (on the divide about 90 minutes east of Durango) opened today for skiing, after receiving 44" from this week's storm. Not bad for the first week in October!

I made it a little bolder for you. ;)

They'll probably close in a week or two unless they get more. 44" is a lot, I wonder how the La Platas did on the west side of the uplift? I have still been holding onto some hope that they will melt out, but I should probably just forget about it.

Jim_H wrote:I made it a little bolder for you. ;)

Yeah I saw that later. I had read the first sentence about the flagstaff temp and glazed over the rest before posting that. Doh!

Wolf Creek is a magnet for snow. It's not uncommon for them to have double the snowfall of nearby spots. I used to wonder if it was just "ski area math" (you know what I talking about), but I've skied up there a handful of times, and pumpkin! they really DO have the most snow in Colorado!

Mammoth Mountain in California can be the same way. They had 668 inches last winter, but that was up from 222 4 years earlier. I always heard that Steam Boat got the most, since they pick up the storms moving to the north.

I love Steamboat for it's "champagne powder" and unmatched tree skiing. And it often gets different snows than other areas in Colorado because of it's relatively different location. But that's just hit-or-miss based on a northerly or southerly storm track. I actually think that Rabbit Ears Pass gets more snow than Mt. Werner (Steamboat) itself does. I'm always thrown off a little bit by how "low" Steamboat is. Base elevation is only 6900 ft, with the top at 10,500 or so. Compared to Wolf Creek where the BASE is 10,500, and the top about 11,700 I think.

I know the range that Steamboat (the Park Range) is in is one of the wettest in the Rockies south of the Idaho/ Montana area. The Park Range, the Teton Range in Wyoming, and parts of the San Juans get a lot. The Tetons and the Park Range probably have lighter snow than the San Juans, though. Plus, a lot of the San Juan's precip is monsoon rain, which is a big part of that areas wetness, and part of why I am not too fond of the San Juans. The San Juans have Telluride, Wolf Creek, the beginner place west of Durango on 160, and Purgatory. Not a lot compared to other locales, and some of that is probably due to isolation and low population, but for as big as it is, you might think there would be another decent sized resort. Decent, not like the one in Silverton.
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/learning/colorado.html

But Silverton is epic. I wouldn't want it to be any bigger than it is. In fact, I'm pretty happy that almost nobody knows it exists.

As far as I am concerned the current weather forecast for Flagstaff is a huge improvement. I was out today hiking with a class, and it was great. Especially down there below 4,000 feet near the Bell Trail! I am going to have to go down there more often this winter.

chumley wrote:But Silverton is epic. I wouldn't want it to be any bigger than it is. In fact, I'm pretty happy that almost nobody knows it exists.

It's a great town at the right time of year, but I bet in the winter it makes Flagstaff seem warm and dry.

Yeah the town is cool too. I was talking about the ski area.

chumley wrote:I was talking about the ski area.

It's not so much a ski area as a snowy cliff.