Tag Archives: weather

It’s 103°F. In the shade.

Posted on by
Comment

The “indoor season” begins in Wickenburg.

In most places, winter is the “indoor season,” the time of year when you want to spend most of your time indoors. But not in Arizona’s Sonoran desert.

I remember my first New Year’s Day in Arizona, back in 1997. I’d gone “down the hill” from Wickenburg to a K-Mart in Glendale to buy a pair of cheap bar stools for the apartment I was living in. I wore a T-shirt that day without a jacket and wasn’t the least bit cold. This is great, I remember thinking, conjuring images of the folks back home.

Cold winters were the reason I left New Jersey all those years ago.

Will hot summers be the reason I leave Arizona?

It’s a dry heat. Sure. But it’s still heat. 103.8°F (that’s about 40°C for you metric folks out there) at 2:35 in the afternoon is killer, no matter how dry it is.

And — for Pete’s sake! — it’s still only May.

I don’t remember the heat affecting me this badly years ago. Back in 1997, in May, we were just starting our house hunt. We’d finally sold our home in New Jersey early in the month and Mike and Spot (now deceased) had joined me in Wickenburg. The other half of our belonging arrived by moving van and we rented a second apartment in the Palm Drive complex to store it and set up our offices. Then we started making the rounds with Connie, our Realtor, who spent the entire summer showing us every home available for sale, no matter how poorly it matched our list of requirements.

I still remember walking up driveways and walkways and around houses in the summer heat, getting more and more depressed with every outing, but not really feeling the heat. Was that a mild summer? Or had my thin blood welcomed the warmth after so many fickle East Coast summers?

To give you an idea of the mindset of people where we’d come from, when we told people back home that we’d bought a new house, their first question was, “Does it have air conditioning?”

What the hell do you think? I felt like replying. Do you think we’re idiots? That we’d buy a brand new house without air conditioning in a town where summer temperatures routinely get into the triple digits?

Phoenix temperatures make big news in New York. New Yorkers love to hear about how hot it is in the summer here, the same way people in Arizona love to hear about how cold and miserable it is in New York in January. Of course, I’ll take a 103.8°F on a May day in Wickenburg long before I take an 80/80 day in New York. (That’s 80°F with 80% humidity.) A typical forecast on a summer day in New York would be the “3 H’s” — that’s hazy, hot, and humid. Ick.

But if that first summer wasn’t bad, things changed. It seemed as if every summer became hotter than the one before it. We bought blinds for the three big 8 x 4 windows on our second floor and they stayed closed every morning (and most of the afternoon) from equinox to equinox, just to give our air conditioning units a fair chance at keeping up. I made the fatal error of leaving my purse on the dashboard of my car one day while it was parked in the driveway. My credit cards, slipped into their individual slots in my wallet, melted flat and would no longer make an impression at the store. Thank heaven the magnetic stripe still worked.

Two years ago, it was unbearable to me. That’s when I realized that any outdoor activity had to be completed by 8 AM (at the latest) and the rest of the day had to be spent in air-conditioned comfort. Air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned office to air conditioned car to air conditioned store to air conditioned car to air conditioned house. Get the idea? The windows go back on the Jeep in mid May and it’s sealed up tight, just so the air conditioning worked better. Better yet, don’t go out at all. After all, it takes at least ten minutes for the air conditioning to cool down a hot vehicle. And heaven help you if you have black leather seats or fail to shade the steering wheel when you run into the grocery store.

Last summer, I had some relief. I worked as a pilot up at the Grand Canyon. My schedule was 7 days on and 7 days off, although I normally worked a 6 on/8 off schedule. I lived at our Howard Mesa property while working. It’s about 15 miles north of Williams (as the helicopter flies) at an elevation of 6700 feet. The heliport at the Canyon was at 6300 feet. High altitudes make a big difference. I don’t think I experienced a day above 95°F while I was up there. And when I came home for my week off, I spent every day in my office, cranking out the books that pay the bills. The summer seemed to fly by (no pun intended).

This summer, I’m going back to Howard Mesa. I have one more book to write and it’s due on June 15. With luck, by June 20, I’ll be up there with my camper and my horses and my bird and my helicopter. I have a big project to work on this summer — converting a 12 x 20 shed to a cabin with a bathroom and kitchen — and a book project to work on in the evenings. I think this is going to be a killer summer and there’s no air conditioning at Howard Mesa, but I think (and hope) I’ll be able to deal with it for the two and half months I plan to be away.

I’ll cheat Wickenburg’s indoor season the right way this year, using the same cop-out the snowbirds use: I’ll just leave town.

Waterfront Property

Posted on by
Comment

This morning, I wake up to find a river running through my property.

It really came as no surprise. After all, Cemetery Wash, one of the five big drainages that feed the Hassayampa River near Wickenburg, runs right through our 2-1/2 acre lot. In fact, about half our land is actually in the wash. But the wash is wide and sandy and it takes a heck of a lot of rain to get it flowing.

Yesterday, we had a heck of a lot of rain. I don’t know the local numbers but I think it reached an inch down in Phoenix. According to the Weather Channel, one inch of rain in Phoenix is like 8 inches of rain in New Orleans or 5 inches of rain in New York. (I’m not quite sure what they mean by that, but it does sound impressive.)

So after a good soak throughout the day, Cemetery Wash was primed for flowing. All it took was the heavy downpour we had overnight. This morning, when I woke up, there was a brown river flowing through the yard. A river running so swiftly, that I could hear it from the house, even with the windows closed.

Trailer in SandOf course, now that the rain has let up to a drizzle, the water’s flow is receding. An hour has gone by since I woke up and the flow is now no more than a narrow stream of brown water. An hour ago, it would have been impossible to leave the house; my driveway was under two feet of running water in some places. Now, I could drive — or even walk — across. A few years ago, I was home alone when a big storm hit. The wash filled with water, all the way across, to a depth of at least four feet. We had some trailers parked in the wash and one of them — a 12-foot flatbed — was washed a mile downstream (see photo). It took a back-hoe to get it out of the ground. The other trailer, a 3500-lb 2-horse horse trailer, was slowly washed about 150 yards downstream. Thank heaven it didn’t get washed over on its side. As it was, we had to replace all wheel bearings in both trailers before we could use them again.

People think its crazy that we live in a house that can be cut off from the rest of town by floodwaters. What they don’t understand, however, is that the flood seldom lasts more than a few hours. Even the big flood I witnessed lasted less than 4 hours. When it was over, I drove the Suburban out into the wet sand, hooked up the horse trailer, and pulled it out to higher ground, just in case it started flowing again. Our driveway is concrete — even across the wash — and although we occasionally lose bits and pieces of it, it usually remains passable after the waters recede. And our house is at least 50 feet above wash level, on a rocky outcropping. So we’re not worried at all about losing the house.

Today, if the ceilings rise a bit (the clouds are still quite low), I’ll take Zero-Mike-Lima up for a flight over town. I’m sure plenty of washes are still flowing and the river must be quite a site to see. I love watching water flow from the helicopter. I love tracing the streams up to their sources or down to the Hassayampa. In weather like this, I can often see waterfalls from the air — waterfalls in the desert!

Rain on the Parade

Posted on by
Comment

It looks like Gold Rush Days will be washed out (again).

From the national weather service:

THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH WILL BE IN EFFECT FOR MARICOPA… SOUTHERN GILA… NORTHERN PINAL… YUMA AND LA PAZ COUNTIES IN ARIZONA FROM 5 AM MST TODAY THROUGH 5 AM SATURDAY. CITIES… TOWNS… AND LOCATIONS IN THE WATCH INCLUDE THE GREATER PHOENIX METROPOLITAN AREA… WICKENBURG… SALT RIVER RECREATIONAL LAKES… GLOBE… MIAMI… YUMA… PARKER… QUARTZSITE… WENDEN… GILA BEND… AND CASA GRANDE.

(Okay, so I made Wickenburg bold. We wouldn’t get that much attention from the NWS.)

Of course, the weather forecast calls for rain all day Saturday, too.

The town seems to have terrible luck when it comes to Gold Rush Days. More often than not, the weather is foul — either rainy or cold. I don’t remember last year being bad, but then again, I didn’t join in on the Gold Rush Days activities last year. (Many locals don’t.)

The good thing about the rain is that we need it. Arizona always needs rain. Even when there are flash flood warnings, we need rain. There just isn’t enough water in Arizona and, with the explosive growth of the southwest, there never will be. Every time we get a weather report that suggests an inch or more of rain — like we have today — I’m thrilled. It adds more time to the clock. I’m talking, of course, about the clock that’s ticking down the hours until Arizona doesn’t have enough water for its people and golf courses.

Another good thing — for Wickenburg — is that the river will keep flowing. It’s been at it for about two months now and I’m enjoying every minute of it. I usually see it from the air as I do tours in my helicopter. The other day, I took a couple up to photograph their land alongside the Hassayampa. After about 10 minutes of circling at 500 feet, we headed up river. Not only is the desert beautifully green, but many of the side canyons were still flowing with tiny streams of water. And it hadn’t rained in days! I can’t wait to fly again on Sunday to see what this storm does to the canyons.

Top Down in the Rain

Posted on by
Comment

I discover that at certain speeds, it doesn’t really matter if it’s raining and the top is down.

I spent the day in Scottsdale today. I had an FAA course to take at the Scottsdale FSDO. The FSDO isn’t at the airport and doesn’t have a helipad. (How inconsiderate!) So I had to drive.

I drove my Honda. If you’ve been following these blogs, you may know that last year I bought a Honda S2000. It’s the last sports car I’ll ever buy, so I don’t drive it often. It has to last. At 18 months old, it still has less than 9,000 miles on it. I’d like to average 5,000 miles a year.

I normally drive my Jeep around town. It’s starting to become a bit of a beater. The roof needs replacing — too much time in the sun! — and the plastic side and back windows were so scratched up that the other day, I just unzipped them and threw them away. Now at least I can see what’s going on behind me. That’s especially useful when I’m in a parking lot, backing up, and the drivers around me aren’t 100% aware of what’s going on around them. (Sadly they can’t use bad windows as an excuse.)

The Jeep is terrible on the highway, even with the windows on. It’s loud and rides like a truck. It has a tape deck that’s so full of dust that it just spits the tapes out without bothering to play them. Not that you could hear the tapes anyway. The darn thing is so loud you can’t even hear yourself think. And you have to downshift to third gear to pass on the highway.

Of course, it does tackle the roads at Howard Mesa very well. And I’ve driven up the river more than a few times in it. So it does have its uses. Highway driving, unfortunately, is not one of them.

Anyway, the Honda is a convertible and I rarely drive it with the top up. But since I had to be in Scottsdale by 8 AM, that means I had to leave Wickenburg at 6:30 AM. And at 6:30 AM in January, it’s still quite dark and very cold. It was a top up drive.

I forgot my iPod at the office. I recently bought a kit that hardwires the iPod into the car’s stereo system so you can control it with the dashboard stereo controls. At the same time, it keeps the iPod charged. This works with the new iPod (iPod Photo, in my case) only. It won’t work with my old, original iPod. (That’s another argument for keeping the old iPod in the helicopter, as I discussed in another blog entry.) The car has a CD player and I had a few CDs, so the iPod wasn’t really missed. I like to listen to NPR, anyway. I listened to that until I was sick of hearing about the Iraqi election’s consequences for the rest of the Middle East, then popped in a CD and listened to old (70s) Elton John for a while. Then I hit traffic on the Loop 101 and decided it might be good to listen to NPR for a traffic report. Evidently, stop-and-go traffic on the Loop 101 between I-17 and Scottsdale Road is a normal occurrence, because they didn’t say a word about it in two traffic reports.

I got off at Princess Road. There were lots of signs about needing a permit to travel on certain roads. I later discovered that the Phoenix Open was somewhere in the area. As if traffic wasn’t screwed up enough, there was this huge, week-long event to completely destroy it.

I pulled into the FSDO’s parking lot without problems and got a good space out front. I stepped inside at 7:58 AM. Sheesh. Imagine doing that commute every day? Sadly, I have to do it again on Wednesday and then again next Wednesday.

I sat through the first half of course. It really has no bearing on this story.

I put the top down when I went to lunch. It was a beautiful day, although still a bit cool. I had a very nice turkey and melted brie on herb bread sandwich at a bakery. I think it’s called the Wildflower Bakery. Something like that. It was a sandwich you can’t buy in Wickenburg because 1) there is no bakery in town and 2) no one there is creative enough to suggest brie with turkey. (Wickenburg used to have a sandwich shop that had interesting sandwiches, but it went out of business.) I enjoyed the sandwich very much, primarily because I’d had a bad stomach problem on Friday night and the sandwich was only the second bit of solid food I’d had since then. I walked over to Organized Living to look for a file rack for my desk and stepped out empty-handed. Then I made my way back through the traffic to the FSDO office for the afternoon session.

At 3:30 PM, when class was over, I stepped outside and was quite surprised to see dark clouds. But the forecast hadn’t said anything about rain. So I put the top down and heading back to the highway for the drive home.

The rain started falling when I was northbound on I-17. First a bit of a drizzle, then enough rain to turn the wipers on. There was traffic, but it wasn’t bad. I was able to keep a speed of 40 to 50 MPH. I felt a few drops on my head, but not many. I had to make a decision: stop now and put up the top or keep driving with the top down?

Ahead, there was sunshine. And I really didn’t want to stop. So I kept going.

I almost regretted my decision when traffic got a bit worse and my speed dropped to about 30. I was getting a little wet. But then traffic cleared up and I sped up. Soon, I was cruising at 65 MPH. And even though the rain was getting heavier, not a drop was falling inside the car!

Top down in the rain, not getting wet. How cool is that? I kept imagining a wind tunnel with the smoke going right over the top of the car. The rain was like the smoke.

I passed a bunch of cars, my windshield wipers working steadily, wondering what the other drivers were thinking of me. They probably thought I was nuts. But I wasn’t the least bit wet! Then I caught up with and passed another convertible with its top down. There were two women inside and they were laughing hard. I waved to them, sticking my hand out into the rain. They waved back. We all laughed. I wondered if only women were crazy enough to drive a convertible with the top down in the rain. Then I sped on.

By the time I got off at the Carefree Highway exit, the rain had stopped. But a look to the west told me that it was likely to start again. And it might rain harder. Was it worth keeping the top down? I was already stopped, waiting behind other cars to make the left turn. It would be easy enough to put the top back up.

Oh, heck. I pulled up the parking break and pushed the roof button. 10 seconds later, I was snapping the two latches closed. I’d keep the top up for the rest of the ride.

It didn’t rain until I got near Wickenburg, and even then it wasn’t much of a rain. I could have left the top down after all. Just keep the speed up and remember the wind tunnel.

I Get It Right (For a Change)

Posted on by
Comment

I make three good transportation decisions in the same day.

I’m just finishing up a week working at my summer job at the Grand Canyon. While I’m working, I live in my trailer at Howard Mesa. It’s a 36 mile drive or 28 nautical mile flight to work.

At the end of my work week, I fly home. Normally, I leave directly from Grand Canyon Airport at the end of my last work day. It’s a 1-1/2 to 2 hour flight at the end of a day when I may have already flown six or seven hours. The air is usually hot and full of thermals. Or thunderstorms have moved in. It’s not fun.

So here’s the situation last night. I get a bad night’s sleep, mostly because I have a headache and the wind keeps flopping the awning around. I wake fully at 5:15 AM. It’s cloudy. I make my first decision: I’m not going to fly home directly from the airport. Why? Because I simply don’t have enough time to pack everything up into the helicopter and close up the trailer.

Then I make my second decision: I’m going to drive to the airport. This one had some real logic behind it. It was cloudy and the weather folks were predicting a 50% chance of rain. There was a definite possibility that I wouldn’t be able to fly back from the airport at the end of the day. That means the helicopter would have to be left there overnight and retrieved in the morning. That would add an hour to my travel time the next morning when I needed to fly home. So I drove my Toyota, which had been parked at Howard Mesa for about a month, to work. It took exactly 41 minutes, including the amount of time I needed to open and close the gate.

Later, at the end of the day, I made my third decision: I’m going to drive the Jeep back to Howard Mesa. The Jeep had been parked at the airport for about a month. I use it on the days I fly in, as my local transportation. So I swapped the Toyota for the Jeep and drove back to Howard Mesa at the end of the day.

These turned out to be good decisions. The reason? First of all, I flew 6.5 hours and was exhausted. Certainly not feeling up to another 1.5 to 2 hours at the stick. Second of all, nasty thunderstorms were all over the area — especially at Howard Mesa. The roads were unbelievably muddy. The Toyota would never have made it up the Mesa. Heck, the Jeep almost didn’t — I skidded off the road into a ditch and needed to shift into 4-Low to get out. And flying up would have been completely out of the question.

So now I sit here in my trailer, toasty warm while it rains outside. The Jeep is covered with thick, reddish mud what will certainly turn a few heads the next time it rolls into civilization. The helicopter awaits me outside, where the dust is (hopefully) being washed off by the rain. Tomorrow, I’ll sleep as late as I can (probably until 5:30 if I’m lucky), have a leisurely breakfast, and pack everything up for my return trip to Wickenburg. The air will be cool and smooth for my flight. Sure, I’ll miss a morning at the office, but I can’t work ALL of the time, can I?