We’re expecting Snow Flurries in Tucson

 

 

You people in the North East– New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, and/or New Hampshire, you are not the only ones with dire seasonal predictions.

You’re getting a winter weather thing called Nemo?  Isn’t that a fish?  It was a cute movie and I can’t imagine that a little, cute fish could be threatening.

Big deal.  Today, according to the news, it is going to be brutally breezy in Tucson, with the high ONLY about 69.

Arizonans do not do weather well.  We usually don’t have any.

Most of us came here to get away from snow, ice and sleet; and the need to remember to stock umbrellas everywhere and pack car trunks with chains, blankets and flares.

Weather reports here are so boring; they throw in road chronicles and construction changes to spice it up.

Not today – NO - a cold front or back is on its way. 

Saturday, the HIGH WILL BE 54.  Break out the parkas.  I’m thinking I will have the husband stop on his way home from work to stock up on hot chocolate, marshmallows, toilet paper and meat.

Every hour during important weather updates, local forecasters announce with glee and horror; “Tucsonans we could have snow flurries followed by a hard freeze overnight into Tuesday”.  I’ve never figured out what a hard freeze is, but it sounds painful. 

We’ve already had BRUTAL nippy weather this year and suffered a week of overnight temps in the low thirties and upper twenties.  Enough is enough.  Mostly every blooming plant in the desert died back in January; all 17.  Thank God I hadn’t put my winter coat in the cleaners, something I’d contemplated for two years.  It helped me to brave the elements.

Try to put yourself in our shoes.  After all, do you know how hard it is to go from the 70’s way down to daytime highs of 40 degrees? 

Have empathy.  How often do YOU get 105 degree temperatures?  I bet you don’t hear URGENT prolonged reports about the nightmares of burning hot pool decks and having to hide inside with the shades drawn against the sun.  No one cares about dry heat.  On the hottest days, our airport is open and even has flights.  We get it at both ends, weather wise that is.

But, you know you too will move here sooner or later, when you get tired of scraping ice off your windshields.  Then you can learn the fine art of desert dwellers weather complaining.

Right now I’m off to tie down the lawn furniture and collapse the umbrellas.  I hear we’re expecting 30 mile per hour winds.  It’s not easy living here, but someone has to.