Heavy Winter Storm Slams Southwestern US

By Sunday night, it was plain that yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as winter in the desert southwest. Global warming apparently took a vacation up north somewhere in Canada, forgetting that this is the desert, where snow is supposed to be a novelty, not a frequent winter visitor.

A heavy winter storm swept through Arizona over the weekend, even dropping slushy flakes across the Phoenix metropolitan area Sunday.

Southward near the Mexican border, disappointed tourists asked, "Isn't it supposed to be warm here?"

Some visitors to the area worried aloud Sunday evening at the prospect of being snowed in. Locals dismissed the idea, until the snow kept falling... and falling...

By 9pm Sunday, more than 2 inches of snow blanketed the tourist town of Tombstone, located some 30 miles north of the Mexican border. Conditions were no better in the rest of the region. One driver reported that in the sixteen-mile stretch between Tombstone and nearby Sierra Vista, snow plows managed to keep the road open. In the course of doing so, however, they left behind mounds of displaced powder that further restricted the already-narrow thoroughfare.

By midnight, the Arizona Department of Transportation reported that Highway 90 between Sierra Vista and Bisbee, running approximately parallel just a few miles south, had become impassible.

As of 11pm Sunday, the snow in the Tombstone area had reached a depth of about 4 inches. The white stuff covered every visible inch of State Highway 80, which runs through the tiny community. Side roads were indistinguishable from their surroundings.

Owners of regional attractions, on the cusp of what should have been their busiest season, were gnashing their teeth as Mother Nature slammed the area with snow for the fourth time in three weeks. Local motels and hotels, booked nearly solid during the same period last year, have seen occupancy slump to negligible levels. Restaurants have been closing early for several weeks. Nobody, it seems, has been willing (or able) to slog through ice and snow more common in the Midwest or Northeast than amid a landscape of cactus and tumbleweeds.