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I've survived the Tucson AZ Flurry of 2023.


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Interesting. My son has lived in Phoenix over the last few years, and I'm pretty sure he's never seen snow while he's been there. From what I understand, Flagstaff is the place in AZ that's different from the rest of the state, climate wise. I love the VW van, by the way!

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12 minutes ago, JamesR said:

Interesting. My son has lived in Phoenix over the last few years, and I'm pretty sure he's never seen snow while he's been there. From what I understand, Flagstaff is the place in AZ that's different from the rest of the state, climate wise. I love the VW van, by the way!

Growing up in Tucson we had snow a number of times, maybe once every 5 or 10 years. Most significant was in the late 1950s when we got 6". That storm resulted in the deaths of a number of Boy Scouts trying to hike Mt Baldy in the Santa Rita mountains south of town. But Tucson is 1000' higher than Phoenix and thus a bit cooler so snow would be less common for Phoenix.

 

There is a bunch of high elevation land in Arizona that does get snow. The "Sky Islands" in south eastern Arizona are generally high enough for snow and forests. And the Mogollan Rim has a lot of forest and potential for snow. A long time ago I came across a claim that about 1/3 of the state of Arizona is covered in pine forest. That might be a bit high but it is possible. It is just that almost all the population is in the lower elevation desert areas like Phoenix and the old cowboy movies preferred the desert for filming so that sticks in the popular culture.

 

For what it is worth, there was supposed to be about 6" of snow yesterday at family house north of Tucson and our mountain cabin in southern California got dumped on last weekend.

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We had snow all over Southern Calif the last few days.

Snow in places where it very rarely ever snows.

The local mountains are buried in snow.

Today, it is bright and sunny with temps in the high 50's, low 60's.

 

Edited by zepher (see edit history)
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Seventeen years here on the Western slopes of the Sierras (just over 2000 feet elevation). First time I could not get out and on our third day of it! Power just came back on less than three hours ago, almost three full days on our generator! Another round expected this coming weekend. I ran out of emergency gas yesterday, but we (my wife!) found a kind soul willing to bring us five gallons. I walked out and met him walking in carrying it! He had a more aggressive four wheel drive than ours and he couldn't do the quarter mile on our road either!

 

The sun has been shining all day today. Maybe I will give the road another try soon?

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Well, I got out, and made it back! My long steep driveway I shoveled the length of three times in four days (beginning early made it a lot easier in the long run!) was the easiest part of the whole five mile round trip! The unplowed short private road we are on was the worst part of the whole drive with a whole lot of slippin' and slidin' and "toboggan" runs in the Expedition (NOT my idea of fun!)! The highway and city streets weren't bad, still narrow in places with snow piled high on the sides. The two shopping center parking lots I had to go to were only partially plowed and jammed packed with hundreds of cars and people trying to stock up between the storms! The gas station was filled with people like me filling large gas cans for generators. But I think I might be able to get through a few more days now.

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I took a motorcycle trip to the south west a few years ago. Late October. We spent the night in Flagstaff, woke up in the morning to an inch of snow on the ground! I was quite surprised as we started the day in Pheonix with temps in the 80's. Until that time I had no idea it snowed in AZ. 

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3 hours ago, TAKerry said:

I took a motorcycle trip to the south west a few years ago. Late October. We spent the night in Flagstaff, woke up in the morning to an inch of snow on the ground! I was quite surprised as we started the day in Pheonix with temps in the 80's. Until that time I had no idea it snowed in AZ. 

😉

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We've had snow on the ground since the first week in November. Not typical. Getting to be an old story. Six more inches on March 2nd. I've stopped shoveling. Just grit my teeth and drive through it!

(North east Washington wheat country)

 

Buried Red Fox Jumping in the Snow | Cindy Goeddel Photography, LLC

 

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