rickdamico's Blog

This is the time of year when I’ve had enough of hot weather!  Will the heat ever go away?  Even the 90’s is getting to be too much.  I can’t wait for winter.

 Just think: cool nights in the 60’s and daytime highs in the 70’s and 80’s.  Going out to eat, if we can afford it during these times, eating on the outside patio’s.  Taking walks in the cool air.  And running?

 I started my running again, and it’s still too hot, but I thought I would jump in the pool afterwards to do a few laps.  Ouch!  The water temperature must have dropped at least 10 degrees!  It was shocking.  Is that a sign that cool weather is finally here?  I hope so.

 Hey Cory – Jaymie – and Dave – give us a break!

San Diego is not perfect. 

 Well we’re all back from our family vacation in San Diego.  And I want you to know, San Diego is not perfect.  While there, we enjoyed 75 degree weather, cool ocean breezes, plenty of sunshine and lots of sailing on “Airtime”.

 We brought our own food, and ate most meals on the boat.  One of the things Ruth brought along was a real treat for me.  Pistachio nuts.  We saved them until the last few days and when we finally got to them.  Guess what?  They were ruined!  The heavy humidity from the ocean air, made them mushy – soft – lousy!

 This was the 2nd worst thing of our vacation.  The first was –for me- not “The Happiest Place on Earth”!  But that’s another story for another day.

 By the way, when we got home, Ruth put the pistachios in the oven on a cookie sheet and baked them for about 15 minutes at 300 degrees.  They were fine when we all gobbled them up that night.

 So you see, San Diego’s not perfect, the humidity makes you soft, especially if you’re a pistachio nut!

I’m so glad to be back.

Rick

I’m enjoying this Monsoon a little more than ones in the past.  Monsoon is a season not a storm, and this season seems to be a little easier to take.

The humidity seems to be a little higher, so it brings the temperature down, and it’s not as hot.  It feels better getting out of the pool, because the water doesn’t evaporate as well, and you don’t get cold.

The storms are violent, but they do seem to cool things down.  And it’s fun to see the clouds in the sky, especially in the afternoon and evening.  They do make for spectacular sunsets, don’t they?

This weekend could be a challenge, however, if the moisture from “Dolly” gets caught up into our air flow. That means a lot of clouds and a lot of rain.  Dave, Cory and Jamie will be watching that.

And we have not had a rash of childhood drownings,  although the ones we have had are just tragic.

So all in all, I’m enjoying this summer.  I hope you are too.

Is mother nature playing a trick on us?  The weather is so nice, no 100 degree temperatures in sight?

It seems by now we should have at least a couple 100 degree days.  Every year people always try and guess when we will first hit 100. 

What do you think?  I'm saying May 29th! 

Rick

Boom!  "Holy Cow what was that?"   That's me screaming in the middle of the night when that thunderstorm went through my neighborhood!  Oh by the way, the middle of the night was 10:30 pm for me.

The lightening and resulting thunder was some of the worst I've ever seen or heard since moving here!   The sound of the thunder rattled the ground and shook our house!

And this was supposed to be one of those benign winter storms coming in from the Pacific.  It made some of our monsoon storms look and feel tame.

Does this have anything to do with climate change?

Rick

You know?   It’s that time of year again.  When, now don’t think I’m crazy, but it’s that time of year again when I get a little antsy because, I’m beginning to miss the heat!

I have had enough of this cold weather.  Enough of the cloudy skies, and the storms that move in from the Pacific this time of year.  I’ve had enough of my feet getting cold when I sit out on the patio.  I miss the heat!

I was standing on my cool-deck looking down at the water in my pool a couple of minutes ago, and I dreamed of a hot – really hot – Phoenix, Arizona day, and splashing into my – bath water warm pool, and coming out of the pool cold because the air is so dry.

I miss the high sun angle, and running the air conditioning, at home and in my car!  I miss the heat!  Bring on summer!  I miss the heat!

(I usually begin to miss the winter weather in August!)

Rick

The snow back east is horrendous!  Some areas were getting 3 to 4 inches an hour!

I remember living back in Michigan and Ohio, shoveling out the driveway, trying to make it to work on time, driving on icy roads.

One job I had (in Ashtabula, Ohio) required me to drive on I-90 through the “Snow Belt” white out conditions, for about 90 miles!  There were times when going over an overpass, the back end of my car was gong faster than the front end!  I came close to running off bridges cracking up and being stranded.

The day I got the job offer from channel 10, there was an ice storm in Lansing, Michigan, and I had to chip off about an inch of ice off my car just to drive home!

The News Director asked me if I would have any trouble adjusting to the living in the Southwest!  I said, “you got to be kidding!”

So now I sit on my back patio, with a patio heater warming the air to 60 degrees, from 50 degrees which I think is too cold! 

We do have it made here don’t we?

Rick

We should top the day off with 70 degrees and sunshine today, and 68 and mostly sunny tomorrow!  Perfect for the Fiesta Bowl, however it looks pretty good for rain this weekend!

Looks like rain coming in Friday, and Saturday and Sunday, and snow in the mountains.  Good news!

Happy New Year!

Rick

I won't be making any more freeze predictions for a while, seeing Mother Nature won't cooperate with me!

But, I was really happy to see it was not that bad this morning, our ficus trees are still intact. 

It looks like things will be warming up for the new year (next week anyway) including getting back to normal temperatures.  That's good especially for the 175 thousand people who moved here last year!  I'm sure "Good" weather was a deciding factor.

Rick

Looks like we didn't get that cold this morning in the valley, at least at the National Weather Service's reporting stations.  However, some people reported temps in the mid 20's in their backyards!

I think one reason why we didn't see a lot of sub freezzing temps is because the wind was blowing and mixing up the air.   Tomorrow the Low pressure system to the north east of us, will have move farther away, and we'll probably have less wind, and a better chance of freezing weather!

The Nationa Weather Service has another Freeze Warning in effect for Friday moring as well!

Stay warm!

Rick

A lot of cold air will be coming down from the Northwest  into valley for the next couple of days.  We had a freeze warning this morning, and it looks like we'll have another freeze warning for Thursday morning, and even Friday morning.

These warnings usually mean parts of the valley will receive temperatures of 32 degrees or less.  And this usually occurs between 3 am amd 9am, when the air is still, and the heat of the day radiates back into the sky.  By 9 am the sun should do it's thing and warm things up.

Temps will be about 10 degrees below normal ( 66 degrees) for a couple more days, and then by the weekend back into the 60's.  Just in time for Alexis to get married.

Take care of the animals and  bundle up!

Rick

I think the weather is going to be interesting over the next 24 to 48 hours.  A low pressure system to the south of us, over baja and another one coming down from the northwest, will interact to cause rain and snow.

We now have winter storm warnings for all of the rim east to west into the White Mountains, with 10 to 12 inches of snow to come down by tomorrow night.

And rain below 5000 feet.  But all of this is  mostly in the eastern half of the state, to the west, just rain and cooler temps! 

Perfect for this time of  year!

Rick

It's evening, about 6pm, the temperature is about 62, its getting dark, and Ruth and I are sitting out on the back patio talking about  - - - - - - -Ficus Trees!

We have about 11 of them in our back yard.  All but three of them had to be replaced this year because of that bad freeze we had in January.  Remember the coldest winter in 30 years in Phoenix?

I'm wondering, will there be another hard freeze this winter?  (You know Global Warming, Climate Change and all that?)  I'm not about to replace more ficus trees in the spring.  Someone at Moon Valley Nursery told us one thing you can do to prevent your trees from freezing over is to put Christmas lights on them.  They old fashion kind with the bigger bulbs that get warm.  Has anyone tried this? 

Anyway - lets hope we have a nice warm winter.

Rick