Rate the Climate: Phoenix, AZ (hot, warm, global warming, temperatures)
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3875 hrs of sunshine and 8.4 inches of precip annually.
I'm giving it a D or maybe a D+. I love the heat but I couldn't deal with it scortching hot for 4 months or more every year. on the other extreme, it never gets cold enough for me to get really excited about winter camping.
'Orrible climate! As bad its own way as Kerguelen and the east coast of Greenland is in its. I can do better in Spokane.
What the link provided by Papa Fox doesn't show is the Houston-like humidity Phoenix gets starting in late June/early July that is a consequence of the annual "monsoon" and astronomical evaporation rates from irrigating the Salt River Valley from one end to the other. That goes on clear to October and is enough to make a brass statue wilt. Heat indices of 130 are not that unusual.
Winters are pleasant for those who tire of 36 degrees and a wild northwest gale and the three weeks in march bookending the spring equinox and a similar period of time in early November are delightful. But even in the winter you are subject to wind even if the rain from the storms that slam ashore in southern California don't make it that far east.
I gave it a D because of the heat from May to September and the brown, dead landscape and boring day-to-day weather. Winters are probably pleasant if you're from a place that gets a proper winter. You wouldn't appreciate a warm, sunny day like we do if you lived there. I literally can't imagine a place literally getting over three times more sunshine than what I grew up thinking was normal and also can't imagine the idea of summer being the season where people have to stay indoors most due to the weather. If the highs were the same as their lows throughout the year then it might be my sort of place, though I would like to go there (not particularly Phoenix, but Arizona in general) one day because I've never been to a proper desert.
A-. Would never tire of the high sunshine hours, plus winters, autumns and springs would be very nice. Loses points for hot summer heat, although it is a dry heat (if it was a humid climate would bring down my rating significantly).
Spent much of a summer month in Arizona back in the 1990s and was able to get outside all of the time. Was in Kingman, AZ at one stage and stayed with a friend and his girlfriend who had a place in a hilly area (the name escapes me). With a little bit of altitude, the climate there was near perfect.
B+
I couldn't give less to the sunniest major city in the world.
I love hot temperatures as well, though it must be a little uncomfortable on some mid-summer days.
Mostly, the problem would be the dead landscape.
A little too cold in winter as well.
Take 5 or 6 degrees from summer highs, transfer them to winter lows, add a few violent thunderstorms to get some greenery, and it's A or A+
I gave it a B. Only because it gets hotter than Las Vegas in the summer. The desert is not bad people. It's a dry heat. I could never handle high humidity summers. I like the feeling that I am baking in a 425 degree oven much more.
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