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Like a gator slithering through the still swamp to overtake whatever it chooses winter is about to finally take over the southern desert. It was two years and a week ago a similar system reached down from the arctic and delivered similar results. Last time we lost the man water pipe leading to the house. Hard freezes for any length of time are uncommon here in the valley and residential property isn’t built to handle the cold; only the heat. A large pond grew out front which was followed by an even bigger hold needed to get to the pipe to have it repaired. We’ll not have a repeat of that. Pipes
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| Samantha Supervising |
double wrapped and plants (mostly) covered.
Not exactly a surprise that the long-timers here in the desert can tell of freezes, such as this, occurring much more frequently. Some of those same folks also tell of actual water in the now barren riverbeds. In my four winters here this is only the second hard-freeze warning I can recall. I can only picture a small handful of days with full flowing rivers as well. For any of the remaining climate change non-believers still out there; dig into the last 25-40 years of local climate data.
I’ve been to the U.S – Mexico border of the Colorado River. It’s more creek than river. You can walk through it. In a few years it’ll be barren. I hate that my water, etc bill every month is under $25. If it were 2-3-4x that I might think twice about planting things that remind me of the Midwest or Southeast. I’d only plant native.
Snow is still visible on the upper peaks of both the Rincon’s and Catalinas. Happily for the downslope valleys and canyons they should see a nice spring. That’ll help ease the blow of the pending blistering hot summer.