We had a pretty cold night last night - Fred said it was 17 degrees when he looked at 6 o'clock this morning. Right now my "Peeping Tom" thermometer outside my office window is reading 36 degrees, and it's expected to get much warmer throughout today. Yesterday had a biting wind right out of Canada . . . not much melting took place.

As you know, I record precipitation for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS), and their information is used by various weather organization like the National Weather Service, meteorologists, hydrologists, emergency crews, USDA, teachers, students, and neighbors in the community (according to their web site,www.cocorahs.org. Yesterday I took a core reading of the 19 inches of snow in our back yard and got 5.40 inches of precipitation. I get a newsletter twice each month from our coordinator, Nolan Doesken in Colorado, highlighting what weather problems are in other parts of the country, and this week it was mentioned that Arizona has had record-setting precipitation this year. I mentioned that to Pam Hebert and got this note from her in response:

Weather has been the coldest and rainiest in the seven winters that we've been coming to Tucson. We're not complaining since we've had some nice hiking
weather, but run-off  water from the mountains  has prevented us from some of our longer hikes. We actually saw a jeep trying to cross a road that had been warned to not to cross, sink and get stuck in mud at one of the State Parks. The wildflowers should be beautiful and we've already seen some desert lupines and poppies.  --Pam