Snow in Tucson

That big winter storm from Alaska that's sweeping across the Midwest had its effect on Baja Arizona yesterday.

Yesterday's low in Tucson itself -- a smidgeon warmer than us in the Foothills -- was 33 degrees with a high of 52. More impressive, we got about a third of an inch of precipitation, much of it in the form of wet snow.

Where we live, local rainloggers logged over a half an inch.

We spent yesterday in a gray snow-clouds, but as I like to say, if you don't like the weather here, wait a few hours.

It's still early morning and the clouds over the Santa Catalina Mountains are just beginning to clear. The big payoff is seeing sunlight playing over the snow-clad mountains.

For local skiers, the pay-off is skiing on top of Mount Lemmon (9157 feet elevation) or, as the Tohona O'odham call it, Frog Mountain (Babad Doʼag). It's the summit of the Catalinas. There's a chairlift there among the aspens, but the slope really only merits a rope tow.

It will take a few days for all the snow to melt. The forecast is for increasingly warmer and sunnier days -- today some clouds; then all clear by mañana.

The nearby Rillito River should be flowing with the runoff. It's not like monsoon rains when we can get several inches of wet in a day, but there will be a pretty decent flow moving debris towards the Santa Cruz River (the main river by which Tucson was founded) and helping replenish our underground aquifers.

All in all, very nice weather for us -- it's the ornamental plants and trees that can't take frost that take a beating.