Heavy Snow — Northern Gila County, Arizona

2013-02-09 to 2013-02-11 · Northern Gila County, Arizona

Event narrative

Heavy snow fell across northern Gila County with the lower elevations reaching heavy snow criteria sooner than higher elevations. Snowfall totals include (in inches): Whispering Pines 20, Tonto Village 16, Pine (5800 feet) 10, Payson (14 NNE) 12, Tonto Natural Bridge 9.2, and Payson (4900 feet) 7.9.

Wider weather episode

An extremely cold trough of low pressure from the Pacific moved over the western United states for several days. A series of disturbances moved through this trough producing several rounds of heavy snow over northern Arizona. Some locations had a brief break in snow fall while other locations only saw periods of heavy snow between lighter periods of snow. This trough will be treated as one episode because of the difficulty in separating the events into different episodes.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 436841. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.