HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

@chumley
Nothing was off limits for huggin' and kissing in the early 70's.

@chumley

These old style gauges are pretty cool. The top funnel is removed, then the outer shell can be lifted and secured in an elevated position, allowing access to the inner mechanism and chart recorder. There are a set of calibration weights that are used to check the accuracy. Adjustments can be made to bring it back within specs if needed. Our results were given to the state climatologist for final determination of the record event.

http://belfortinstrument.com/products/u ... ain-gauge/

I've been through a couple rainfalls of that magnitude. I'd hate to be backpacking when the trees start falling and the land starts heading downhill by the acre-foot.

@rwstorm
I've seen one like this before. I'm sure I got a photo of it. Might even be on HAZ? I have no idea when or where I saw it though.

It's June 9th and at the reporting station used for my location, the temperature is 70 and the dew point 69 degrees. I think I went to sleep in June and woke up in August, or September. It's raining, too. At the extreme end of that, Mount Lemmon has had over 1 inch of rain, 83/100ths on Mica MT. It looks like there was 87/100ths near Wrightson.

Thank you for the info rwstorm, I spent several days at Roosevelt Lake during and after the storm. We camped at School House Point, dad and a neighbor stayed in the back of a camper and I stayed underneath an overturned aluminum boat placed on the concrete slab. The rain drummed on the boat hull and I stayed dry and comfy. We initial were going to Tonto Creek but our neighbor who was in the Air Force was able to get a boat from Water Dog at Apache Lake so we opted for Roosevelt.

@Nighthiker
I would say it was probably very fortunate that you were at Roosevelt Lake and not Tonto Creek. Since it was a holiday weekend, me and a couple friends from high school days decided to go to the Grand Canyon. We had a motel reservation for Saturday at South Rim. All three of us were weather nuts, and figured this would just add to the excitement. Phoenix had some thunderstorms Thursday evening as the first of the tropical moisture moved in. But that was nothing compared with what was to come. We actually discussed calling off the trip by Friday evening, as the situation was ramping up. But Saturday morning it was cloudy and not doing much in Phoenix, so we headed out. As we drove north the rain increased and the amount of water cascading off rock faces and in normally dry washes was impressive. The scariest part was going up through Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. I'm guessing this must have been around midday Saturday. By the time we reached Junipine and upper Oak Creek it was insane. Water falls everywhere, rocks and debris on the highway, flooded dips, etc. The fun and excitement had turned to fear. Somehow we made it out of the canyon and when we topped out near Flagstaff the rain diminished and were were out of the worst. Uneventful the rest of the way to the Canyon, just cloudy and very humid in the tropical air.

That evening at the motel we became aware of the magnitude of this thing from TV news reports. Wow! We decided we better head home Sunday. It was still warm and sort of fogged in Saturday night. Well, sometime in the night the cold front came through, and Sunday morning dawned clear and cold...like 32 degrees cold! Such was the strength of the cold storm from the NW interacting with the tropical air. We took a last look at the Canyon before leaving, and it was a sea of white, totally fogged in as far as you could see and clear above. Those who have seen it that way know how awesome it is.

But seeing that beauty was tempered by knowing of all the flooding chaos, death, and destruction going on a few hundred miles to the southeast. Surreal.

Ah, the dew point is back down to more seasonal readings, the skies are back to a nice June clear, and the Santa Rita Mountains are visible again. This is much better!

On the other hand, and I know it is not representative of the state overall, Flagstaff has had 1.12 inches of rain this month, topping the wet June of 2009, and though May was slightly wetter in 2009, the May-June period is already wetter than in 2009. Areas just west of town out to Williams really didn't get as much this month. At least as far as the areas of northern Arizona that have had significant rain this last month or so, there has been a pretty good amount at the start of the growing season, which will be beneficial if the traditionally wet July to September monsoon is a bust, as it was in 2009. Some places, like Tec Nos Pos and Navajo National Monument had over 3 inches of rain.

We are now 4 days into the 2015 Monsoon Season. I can't believe this wasn't previously discussed!

Yeah whatever...Andres kickstarted the Monsoon Season on the Mogollon Rim a couple of Weeks ago....It's been Clouding up and Raining somewhere up there just about every day....

Outdoor Lover wrote:Andres kickstarted the Monsoon Season

do you base that on Vega & Rohli theories and concepts discussed within Climatology

@joe bartels
No, Personal Experience...It's Rained up there almost every day since Andres went through...And if somewhere on the Rim hasn't gotten Wet, it hasn't been due to lack of Monsoon Clouds....There was so much Rain up there with that Storm that I think all that Moisture literally got things going....I don't think Mother Nature looks at the Calendar when determining the Start of Monsoon Season....

Outdoor Lover wrote:And if somewhere on the Rim hasn't gotten Wet, it hasn't been due to lack of Monsoon Clouds

Actually that's false. None of the rain on the rim has been the result of monsoon clouds. A monsoonal flow has not yet occurred this year.

Though I agree completely that momma earf doesn't care what the calendar says with regards to the seasonal shift in winds.

PS. I'm impressed (amazed) that Joe is reading this thread. Nevermind posting in it!

chumley wrote: PS. I'm impressed (amazed) that Joe is reading this thread. Nevermind posting in it!

He has to read any thread you are posting to... ;)

The Tucson NWS is talking about monsoon moisture beginning to creep in from the south or east as this week progresses. Pretty much south and east of the Tucson area.

What is with the brown haze? It seems to be smoke from a distant fire, and there is a lot of it. I could see superstition land marks yesterday, from Lemmon, but the air is very hazy.

Canyon very hazy, so is Williams. So, could it be that fire in the San Bernardino Mountains?

Somehow I don't think it is from the managed fire near Strawberry. This is a generalized haze covering all of Northern Arizona, from what I could see from the top of Desert View Watchtower yesterday. Still hazy today in Williams.

Jim_H wrote:The Tucson NWS is talking about monsoon moisture beginning to creep in from the south or east as this week progresses. Pretty much south and east of the Tucson area.

What is with the brown haze? It seems to be smoke from a distant fire, and there is a lot of it. I could see superstition land marks yesterday, from Lemmon, but the air is very hazy.

Kearny fire?

I saw a social media report from Grand Canyon National Park that the region wide haze is indeed from the San Bernardino fires.

Grimey wrote:Kearny fire?

Yes and only in Arizona do we fight fires this way...
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/loc ... /28922791/

SuperstitionGuy wrote:

Grimey wrote:Kearny fire?

Yes and only in Arizona do we fight fires this way...

In what way is that? If I interpret your statement the way the article spells it out, you could mean with a bulldozer, but that is a fairly standard way of creating containment lines. In the Florida wildfires, "fire storms" of 1998, as they were affectionately know, line 100 feet wide were plowed with the bulldozer. Fun facts!