Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I posted a photo of our neighbor children playing in the snow when I wrote about our palm tree. Beth's (Firefly Forest) comment was that was the most snow she'd ever seen in Tucson. I was sorting through old photos and found some more photos of our neighborhood in snow. So this post is for Beth and all other Tucsonans who haven't experienced waking up to the quiet that comes with newly fallen snow in Tucson.

I did a bit of searching on the Internet and found that there aren't many images showing snow in the Tucson valley. People talk about the great snow days of January 1965 and March 1972. We usually get snow in the Santa Catalina Mountains to the north of us; in fact, the Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley is the southernmost ski area in the United States, although there's been no skiing this year. We haven't had any measurable precipitation since mid-October.

Here are photos from the January 1965 snowfall. The snow melted by noon.

Waking up to a rare snowfall in the Tucson valley, January 1965

Santa Catalina Mountains in the background. Now our neighbor's
huge mulberry trees have grown up
and we get just glimpses of the mountains from our yard.

In 1972, there was another snowfall. Even though they wanted to stay home to play in the snow, I persuaded my older two children to go to school, thinking they'd have a great time at recess playing with their friends. It turned out that the principal wouldn't let them out at recess or at lunch time. Had I known, I would have kept them home to enjoy the exceptional experience.

My younger daughter was three at the time.
We didn't have snowproof gloves for her,
so we put her hands in baggies.

The snow stayed through the morning.
The Santa Catalina Mountains are barely visible.

By afternoon, the snow in the valley had melted.
But the mountains were still beautiful.