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Desert snow south of Tucson, showing Santa Rita Mountains rising up to 6500ft.
The shooting location is a little over 3,000ft, about 600ft higher than Tucson and this is not the area of saguaros, as Tucson is.
While these peaks get yearly dustings, floor accumulation is super rare. Melting on landing? Maybe a little every year, but not accumulation.
This accumulation happened on Jan 2, following a Jan 1 accumulation, and there was even a bigger snowfall in late February.
Thank you all for the comments.
I added description on top before the picture.
This is a land of Ocotillo and Desert Spoon (showing, palm like), but above the Saguaro cutoff for temperature. Just 20 miles north the saguaros do grow.
Mesquite trees grow here too, as does Cholla.
This is a more afternoon area of opportunities, but I only had the snow for a morning.
Twice. Melted all before noon each time. As expected. The wet looking snow gives that away.
100 plus degrees summers and sometimes 100 degree Sept and Oct,
This barely cool enough day made me skeptical about Tucson snow, but maybe someone has late February Tucson photos, much better odds for saguaro snow then!!
Saguaros with snow sure are a pretty sight, but I didn’t catch that this year.
pliukait wrote:
Wow! I've been in Phoenix in February when it has been close to 100F. Quite a difference to what is shown here.
How do the cactus take to the snow, does it damage them any?
All the saguaro cactus in the Saguaro National Park must look really cool.
Mar 01, 2019 at 12:43 PM
Mark Metternich Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
There is different cactus, Saguaros might be most picky, they don't like freezing temperatures so are normally below 3,000 ft. Other cactus like Cholla take cold better.
Creosote bushes however, get so weighed down with snow that instead of being 4 ft, 5ft tall, they are almost touching ground, but then recover to normal as the snow melts.
This particular January snowfall didn't deposit much on Tucson, but Saguaro National Park might have gotten a bit more, but definitely the late February snowfall, was even more impressive and longer lasting. This has been a very different year with 3-4 snow days.
pliukait wrote:
Wow! I've been in Phoenix in February when it has been close to 100F. Quite a difference to what is shown here.
How do the cactus take to the snow, does it damage them any?
All the saguaro cactus in the Saguaro National Park must look really cool.
