Fimbulwinter, Tucson Style

[dancinghorse]

When I first moved to Arizona, winter meant rain if you were lucky, drought if you weren't. Snow happened in the mountains.

After the turn of the millennium, we started getting a little every winter or so. Once. If we were lucky. An inch at most. The icon photo was taken ca. 2006, during the first real storm we had at DHF. That was also the year it got so cold for a day or two that the pipes froze, not just here but pretty much everywhere else as well.

In 2007 we had snow on Boxing Day. 2008, a little bit. And so on. Last year there was nothing--seriously warm year. We never even had a freeze.

Clearly the weather gods were saving it all for 2013. We had a dusting in January. Coolness!

Then came February and the rolling waves of warmi(ish), bloody cold, warm(ish), rain, snow, warm(ish). Last week we were thinking we'd really hit the jackpot: snow twice, and the second time, quite enough to stick.

So this week when the forecast gave us same old same old warm(ish) but batten down because Winter Was Coming, we knew what to do. Batten the hay, line up the horse blankets. Blanket horses at dinner even if it was warm, because it would be bloody cold and wet by dawn.

But it was dry by dawn. Kind of warm, actually. Headed for 50F. I started to think, meh. This one will fizzle.

And the morning advanced, and the clouds rolled in, but rolled north of us. We've seen that before. Meh. It was, however, looking apocalyptic along the western horizon.

There was a blizzard warning. Did I mention that?

Just before noon the wind came up. Not uncommon here. We get a lot of wind.

Ten minutes later, all the cats went splooey. Genghis flew off the top of the kitty condo. Through rain and ice slamming against the windows, I saw that the top of the big cottonwood in the yard had snapped off and was now lying on the ground, with bits scattered all over the deck.

And then we got the snow.

Blizzard warning. Yes.

It came in three waves. We got about six inches here, all told, by morning. The top of the tree was the only casualty, though it's very wet and sloppy out there now, after an early-morning Winter Wonderland. With snow still on the ground. It looks like March in Maine.

This morning before breakfast, Pandora had this to say:

http://youtu.be/1p79HWRn_e0

Nemo this wasn't, but I believe I shall call it George--after the Desert Museum's friendly Mountain Lion.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I think the first three years lnhammer was here ... up to right before you got here ... there was snow every year. I know for sure there were four snowfalls his first year here, which may have been a record.

I moved here knowing snow was not unknown here, though it tended to melt off by noon. And then, after all the early morning calls I received from lnhammer telling me about desert snow from afar ... I got here and waited well over a decade before the first time I got to see it actually sticking to the ground. :-)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Apparently the last big snow year was 1990. Sound about right?

[janni.livejournal.com]

That foes sound right ... he got here in 1989, and I know the first year or two were hit hardest.