Snow & Fog

Pope Greg's Eve passed without a blog comment, but not because it was dull. It snowed that night which, by itself, is a noteworthy occurrence in the Old Pueblo.

You do know Pope Greg's Eve, don't you? Even before the Eve was overcome by champagne vintners, big band parties, and the Times Square ball drop, and the day by college bowl games, January 1 was the feast day of Pope Greg who slew the pagan Julian calendar.

The snow settled only where the warmer ground didn't melt the ice, but folks in the city were talking about it for days.

This morning, the sky was getting lighter as I sipped my coffee and checked the weather on my tablet. Odd, isn't it, that we check the weather on the computer instead of going outside and experiencing it? It's like looking at your watch to decide whether you are hungry. Anyway, there was a weather advisory posted for Tucson.

Too curious to pass up, I touched the link and up popped up the warning: fog advisory.

About twenty minutes earlier, when it was still dark, I had looked out the bedroom window at the neighbor's driveway floodlight. It was clear.

I read the advisory with some disbelief, but went to the dining room window and opened the shutters. The entire Tucson basin was socked in. Cool.

Thinking it was only in the lower elevations, I checked the north side, towards the neighbor with the floodlight. It was socked in. Couldn't see past the first neighbor, much less the Catalina foothills or mountains. Very cool.

Walking Nazar down our street, I felt like I was in Lower Alaska where cold, damp, fog is a regular occurrence and a normal feeling. Here in the Sonoran Desert, it's maybe once a year.