“Smells like desert snow”

Seattle’s Curt Cobain might have said something like this if he had lived in the desert.   Alluding, of course, here to the SEATTLE teen angst band, Nirvana, and their big hit, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. BTW, a song covered later by Bill Nye the Science Guy in an educational ditty,  “Smells Like Air Pressure”.  But why do this, have a title like this?  Contrived, ludicrous “cleverness.”  The world needs more honesty.

Began as a good rain at 2:40 AM, and by 4:20 AM, was changing to snow, for those detailed oriented folk.  Measured 2 inches on two locations here at 3200 feet, top of the car outside and on the “barbie” cover just as the snow was letting up around 6:30 AM.   Two minutes later, it would not have been as deep since all of the surfaces are above freezing in temperature and the snow depth lessens by the minute.  This was the third or fourth snowfall here in Catalina since we moved here in mid-2008, and was just that bit more than the “record” deepest of 1.5 inches in December 2008.

Here’s the SHARP FROPA, passage of the dramatic cold front “plus”) this morning at 3 AM as seen in the temperature and pressure records (software is a bit immature and won’t allow printing of two parameters on the same chart).  Note sharp rise in pressure at “FROPA”, the classic sign of a cold front’s passage.

La Nina-like conditions seem to return over the next couple of weeks, so lay back and enjoy the soil moisture while you can!  Some photos, the first something we Arizonans (of late)  called an “Arizona Christmas tree”, a snow covered cholla cactus.

 

 

 

By Art Rangno

Retiree from a group specializing in airborne measurements of clouds and aerosols at the University of Washington (Cloud and Aerosol Research Group). The projects in which I participated were in many countries; from the Arctic to Brazil, from the Marshall Islands to South Africa.