TIED!

About 15 minutes ago when we started this blog post, the temp was 7 and the title for the post was "One Degree Away."  Now, just a few minutes before 7 am, the temp dropped to six degrees and we're TIED with our All-Time low temp ever recorded here at Second Chance Ranch.  YEA!  Let's here it for a tie ball game.  Does this mean we go into overtime?

Naturally, at times such as these, we are fond of seeing just how bad it is for everyone else.  Flagstaff Airport is -9; East Flag is -10 and Mormom Lake is -20.  Grand Canyon's South Rim is "only" six below zero.

The "Hard Freeze" warning came true for Tucson where it is now 27 degrees and it's 24 in Sierra Vista.  Twenty-four there probably feels like 7 here.  Mass quantities of ornamental desert landscape plants are being frozen to death even as we speak.

In Idaho Falls, it's -13, slightly warmed than the overnight low of -15. The high in Idaho Falls today is predicted to be equal to our low of 7.   By comparison, our high here today will be pretty chilly, too, not even making it out of the 30's.  Flagstaff is progged to have high temps of 22-23-22 over the next three days!  Yes, it is one of those patented January cold spells.  However, based on history, this just might be the coldest episode of the winter.

Take a look at the two mind-numbing data sheets below and you can easily see that mid-January marks a dividing line of sorts.  Temps tend to be warmed after the middle of the month. Below are the historical climate summaries for Beaver Creek Ranger Station and Montezuma Castle Nat'l Monument.  Notes are below each.

Above is the Beaver Creek data.  

The Ranger Station is several miles upstream (and uphill) from us. 

 Note that the "lowest low" is one degree recorded in 1963.

This data site is a a higher elevation that we are.

OK, above is Montezuma Castle National Monument.  "MOCA," as it is known to the NPS, 

is hundreds of feet lower in elevation that we are and roughly 10 miles downstream.  

Note how much colder it gets there than the higher elevation Ranger Station.

That's because cold air sinks.  It's physics and definitely about the only physics I know.

Note that in 1963, MOCA recorded one below zero.