Area's around Tucson with higher elevation & slightly cooler temps? (Sierra Vista: crime, place to live)

[hbertschy]

I'm considering moving to the Tucson area, and I know it's hot but I also know that one of the best things about AZ is that temps differ greatly due to the difference in elevation. My dad just moved to Green Valley so I'm looking to move around this area but I'm wondering if there are any counties near Green Valley/Tucson that has a slightly higher elevation than Tucson. I'm looking for slighly cooler temps in a nice area. Thanks,

[keninaz]

Sierra Vista is about the closest you will find. Benson is a little closer but not much there.
The temps in SV are some 10° or more cooler than Tucson and it's quite a bit greener in SV.
I lived there for a few years myself.

[Canoa Ranch]

Green Valley is a fair bit cooler than Tucson as well due to its elevation.

[keninaz]

Sierra Vista is at 4600', much cooler. I was at 5100' when I lived there in the county 10 miles south of town at the base of the mountains.
Either place you are going to have lots of illegals coming through.
I had to run them off my property frequently and they did try to take an old car we had several times.

[observer53]

Oracle, which is north of Tucson. Pretty area, but there's not much there.

[LordBalfor]

We have land out at J-6, 40 minutes SE of downtown Tucson (10 minutes west of Benson, just off I-10 (ie right at the Pima/Cochise county line)). It would be a bit less than 1 hour from there to Green Valley.

Because we are atop the gentle ridge that runs between the Rincons & the Whetstones, we're about 700 feet higher than Benson - which puts us at 4,200 feet (similiar elevation to Sierra Vista) and thus have the same cooler climate as SV. Since there was a wunderground.com personal weather station (now no longer collecting but still with historical readings online) not far from our lot I was able to collect 5 years worth of weather station readings. We average 3 days/year where it gets (just) above 100.

Here are our average highs/lows from that station:

Ave High/Ave Low
Jan 60/38
Feb 64/40
Mar 68/44
Apr 77/50
May 84/59
June 93/68
July 91/71
Aug 86/68
Sep 85/63
Oct 78/57
Nov 69/51
Dec 60/37

Ken

PS - Here is a link to that weather station. Give it a few minutes to load as this particular link will display all 5 years worth of available readings (ie daily highs/lows/wind/humidity etc, etc, etc:

http://www.wunderground.com/weathers...0&yearend=2009

Note that you can "drill down" to look at detailed readings for any particular day (every 11 minutes).
Note too that the main page shows a high over that time of 149. That is a glitch in the data. When you drill down to actually look at the data, the warmest day over those 5 years is actually 102.

[azdr0710]

this is all good advice....keep in mind that distances are great out here, so be ready for some driving....

if you come from a humid climate, make sure you're also ready for the dry air out here....it usually cools very quickly at night and warms quickly in the morning....big temp difference between sunny areas and shady areas.....and, in July and August, we have our summer rainy period (called monsoon by some) in which it gets very humid (for us!) and can be uncomfortable, even at night, with little temp drop at night...your AC will drone on almost all the time

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by hbertschy

I'm considering moving to the Tucson area, and I know it's hot but I also know that one of the best things about AZ is that temps differ greatly due to the difference in elevation. My dad just moved to Green Valley so I'm looking to move around this area but I'm wondering if there are any counties near Green Valley/Tucson that has a slightly higher elevation than Tucson. I'm looking for slighly cooler temps in a nice area. Thanks,

I second the idea of Sierra Vista. It isn't really 10 degrees cooler than Tucson, though...at least not on most days.

The nice thiing is the biggest temperature differences between the 2 cities are in the summer, while the differencess are smaller in winter.

Sierra Vista is a little greener, too. It's more "semi-arid" whereas Tucson fits sqarely into the "desert" category.

Here are the temperature averages for SV:

SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA - Climate Summary

Here are the averages for Tucson:

TUCSON WSO AP, ARIZONA - Climate Summary

The problem with SV is that it's still pretty small (around 43,000 people). But it's the largest town nearby that's a half decent place to live.

[coatimundi]

Sierra Vista has a vastly different culture from that of Tucson due to Fort Huachuca and the heavy Border Patrol presence so, if you like Tucson, you may not like it there and should probably spend some time there before choosing it as a place to live. They've had some crime issues in the past few years also. Not illegals, just idiots.
It's not quite as affordable as it once was, but there's also Sonoita. Less than an hour from Tucson, beautiful, cooler in the summer and there's a back road through the mountains that, if you have a good car, will you get to Green Valley in less than an hour. Tiny town though.
Nogales also gets quite a bit cooler than Tucson but, then again, it's Nogales. Rio Rico is a good alternative to that and there are people who do the Rio Rico -> Tucson commute. That'll wear down your car though and run up your gas expenses.

[tijlover]

No mention of wind speed, as if it's not a factor in your comfort/discomfort?

The temperature, itself, is always meaningless unless you tack on humidity levels and windspeed.

This is one factor I stupidly overlooked moving to Las Vegas, is that blasted wind factor.

How's Tucson for wind? How does it compare to Las Vegas?

Even if it gets down to 60 degrees here at night, I always carry a jacket & stocking cap along, just in case that blasted wind kicks up and I find myself freezing to death.