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My boyfriend will be attending the Border Patrol Academy, in Artesia, in a few months and my two dogs and I are looking to move to Ruidoso while he's there. We will be moving from south Texas, so the winter up there intimidates me. I need to find a place to live for a few months(any sugestions?) and I'm curious what the utilities will cost me in the cold months. I also considered moving to Carlsbad, but since I will most likely be working in the bar/restaurant industry, i figured Ruidoso would have more to offer. I want to gather all the info i can in order to make an informed desicion, so any tidbits would be appreciated!
I think Larry may be correct. I have a neighbor here in Phoenix and her nephew was visiting this past spring and he lives in Ruidoso. Since my husbund and I are thinking of retiring in Southern New Mexico we grilled him with endless questions and I was very surpised to find out that the town of Ruidoso had just a dusting of snow this winter on a few occasions and I guess the winter before was much the same. He said the ski area had a really tough season. He also told us that the golf courses in Ruidoso are open year round, I guess that when they do get snow that it must melt very quickly. Sometimes those weather tables can be a little off, I know that the tables for Phoenix give the average highs for June - August at around 105-108, when in fact they are really more like 114-117. Perhaps these tables are averages over the last 50 years or so, and now that global warming is upon us they really don't present an accurate picture!
> Sometimes those weather tables can be a little off, ... tables for
> Phoenix give the average highs for June - August at around 105-108,
> when in fact they are really more like 114-117.
The tables are averages and need to be considered in conjunction with
the tables for records high temperatures which are in the range you
stated and higher. Temperatures will fall in a range, so "114-117" is
a possibility and not a likelyhood.
I lived in Phoenix from 2000-2006 and 105-108 as an average is
pretty much "dead nuts" in my experience. (The highest I've seen
is 118.)
> Perhaps these tables are averages over the last 50 years or so,
> and now that global warming is upon us they really don't present
> an accurate picture!
The worst global warming predictions I have seen talk about increases
in temperatures of 2-4 degrees over the next century and only 1-2
degrees over the last not the nine degrees you talk about above.
What you *do* see in Phoenix is the "heat island" effect where average
nightime low temperatures are 10-15 degrees higher than historical
averages, but that just pushes the time that the temperature drops
below 100 past midnight, for instance, to 2 am or so.
I think Larry may be correct. I have a neighbor here in Phoenix and her nephew was visiting this past spring and he lives in Ruidoso. Since my husbund and I are thinking of retiring in Southern New Mexico we grilled him with endless questions and I was very surpised to find out that the town of Ruidoso had just a dusting of snow this winter on a few occasions and I guess the winter before was much the same. He said the ski area had a really tough season. He also told us that the golf courses in Ruidoso are open year round, I guess that when they do get snow that it must melt very quickly. Sometimes those weather tables can be a little off, I know that the tables for Phoenix give the average highs for June - August at around 105-108, when in fact they are really more like 114-117. Perhaps these tables are averages over the last 50 years or so, and now that global warming is upon us they really don't present an accurate picture!
Don't know what year he was talking about... Looking at Ski Apache site as of April 2nd, 2007 it had 160" of natural snow. I don't ski so I didn't pay that much attention. I do know in Timberon we had lots and thats lower than the Mt. This thread can give you more info Ski Apache — Snapshot
Now the town is lower and on the south side of the Mt, so they may have not gotten as much.
I think Larry may be correct. I have a neighbor here in Phoenix and her nephew was visiting this past spring and he lives in Ruidoso. Since my husbund and I are thinking of retiring in Southern New Mexico we grilled him with endless questions and I was very surpised to find out that the town of Ruidoso had just a dusting of snow this winter on a few occasions and I guess the winter before was much the same. He said the ski area had a really tough season. He also told us that the golf courses in Ruidoso are open year round, I guess that when they do get snow that it must melt very quickly. Sometimes those weather tables can be a little off, I know that the tables for Phoenix give the average highs for June - August at around 105-108, when in fact they are really more like 114-117. Perhaps these tables are averages over the last 50 years or so, and now that global warming is upon us they really don't present an accurate picture!
Have we reached the point truly in the global warming hysteria that we are willing to take people's antecdotes and personal opinions over hard cold stats? Weather history stats are about as cut-and-dry as they come.
And no...Ruidoso got far more than a "dusting of snow this winter on a few ocassions"...far, far more. Albuquerque received a whopping (for ABQ) 30+ inches and Ruidoso received more than that!
I think that your neighbor's nephew either may have grossly underestimated to you what a "dusting" of snow is to him, or, he is trying to sell you hard on Ruidoso!
I didn't mean to hit a nerve with the global warming remark it was actually kind of tounge in cheek As far as the information we garnered from our neighbors nephew about Ruidoso, I believe he was refering to the town itself as he did mention to us that the mountains above get quite a bit of snow, if he was feeding us some bad information (perhaps a dusting to a mountainman like him is 7 or 8 inches?) then you all have my sicerest apologies for posting it here. We have only spent the last two summers in Phoenix, but I can personally attest that any daytime high under 110 degrees in June or July is definately a "cool" day, and they are rare! If we do decide to relocate to Alamogordo one of the things that I am most looking forward to is the cool (below 70 degrees) summer evenings and a 98 degree summer day that the folks around town are likely to call a scorcher!
Wassana Isabelle: You hit on something there..climate descriptions are all relative. 98 degrees in Alamogordo sounds a lot better than 98 here in Ft Worth, TX with the humidity. I can take hot days, but I don't like hot nights. [Insert joke here.] I don't see how anyone can survive in a place like Phoenix where it's still above 100 degrees at midnight, humidity or not!
I have spent quite a bit of time researching weather data for NM and CO. The effects of a warming trend are definitely evident in both states.
The averages temps etc numbers normally are based on at least 40 years of data. If you look at the data more closely, you will see a big difference in the averages as of 1990-current versus the normally used 40 year averages.
The last 17 years has seen a marked rise in temps and lower snow levels in many locations. This is general in that the latest growing season data published show that the growing season is getting longer in many locations in the SW and also right here in Illinois.
so we are in a warming trend. Not sure about Ruidoso, but it would be an interesting test to obtain data for 1990 to current and compare those averages to previous data. Then you get the truer picture of what is happening.
> We have only spent the last two summers in Phoenix, but I can
> personally attest that any daytime high under 110 degrees in June
> or July is definately a "cool" day, and they are rare! ...
I'm sure you remember it that way, but that's not the way it happened.
Perhaps, you were making measurements with a bad instrument
and/or in a wrong location. I would *bet,* but I haven't *measured*
that temperatures on our (South-facing) front porch in June and July
over the past seven years regularly exceeds 120 degrees. In my
garage it's well past 130, but on the North side under the shade
of the porch where you measure actual ambient air temperatures
it is nothing like your claim.
> I have spent quite a bit of time researching weather data for NM
> and CO. The effects of a warming trend are definitely evident in
> both states. ... so we are in a warming trend.
We are talking about a big effect, such that you would notice it,
not a couple of degrees which you would not notice.
Any cites showing more than a 1-2 degree increase over
the past 40 years of data?
I'm not talking about the "Heat Island" effect.
From - PHOENIX CITY, ARIZONA - Climate Summary
--------------------------------------------------------
........1961-1990 .... 1971-2000 ...... 1948-1998
Jun ...... 102.9 ........... 103.7 ........... 102.9
Jul ....... 105.7 ........... 106.2 ........... 105.2
Aug ...... 103.7 ........... 104.5 ........... 103.5
--------------------------------------------------------
Clearly a warmup, but by less than one degree comparing averages
from 1961-1990 and 1971-2000.
> Not sure about Ruidoso, but it would be an interesting test to
> obtain data ....
I didn't perform the same analysis, since over such a large timeframe,
I would assume that variations in temperature in Ruidoso would not
be more or less than 0.1 degree from Phoenix variation or any other
city in AZ/NM/UT/CO.
Bottom line: There has been no appreciable change in the weather
in Phoenix or Ruidoso over the past 50 years. Maybe in the next ten
there will be. It's happened before. It will happen again.
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My boyfriend will be attending the Border Patrol Academy, in Artesia, in a few months and my two dogs and I are looking to move to Ruidoso while he's there. We will be moving from south Texas, so the winter up there intimidates me. I need to find a place to live for a few months(any sugestions?) and I'm curious what the utilities will cost me in the cold months. I also considered moving to Carlsbad, but since I will most likely be working in the bar/restaurant industry, i figured Ruidoso would have more to offer. I want to gather all the info i can in order to make an informed desicion, so any tidbits would be appreciated!
Warming Trends
