Snow on the mountains, rain in the desert

Endment said...

Guess one reason people talk about the weather is
that they are surprised by it...

It did rain last night for quite a while, after periods of brilliant blue sky alternating with dark foreboding clouds. No thunderstorms - although the lights flickered several times around midnight - not sure why.

This was the first measurable precipitation in Tucson in 88 days: official total 0.02" at the airport at midnight, but it hadn't stopped raining at that point. The winds were up to 44 mph. This rain ended Tucson's fourteenth longest drought on record. The record was set in 1950, when Tucson went 114 days without rain.

Mount Lemmon Highway remained closed Saturday with about 5 inches of snow. The prediction is that through tonight 8 to 14 inches of snow will fall in the Santa Catalina Mountains. With luck, there will be more rain for us, although the sky this morning is brilliant blue, sunny, with white fluffy clouds. (University of Arizona webcam of the mountains.)

I took some photos of the snowy mountains - a beautiful sight to wake up to this morning. [As always, click on the photos for enlargements.]

Taken from the front yard - you can only see the front range

Taken from the the top of the road - you can see the back range of the Santa Catalinas:
Mount Lemmon (9157 ft. elev.) - Mount Bigelow with the communication towers;
that's Thimble Peak in the right foreground
with Sabino Canyon to the right of the hill and Bear Canyon to the left

And just for a little spring brightness, a Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, that I heard right behind me as I was walking back. A quick, blurred shot just before it took off, but cheery nonetheless.