Bahia Kino, Sonora - how cold is it really?

I do not remember the year, I saw snow on the ground in my friends yard in México City, it has been a number of years now that this cold weather has been so cold there have been cold spells, and a lot of people died, lets hope that the local governments help some, although I doubt it very much.

Good luck to all.


navegator

They sleep 5 to a bed. I have a Puebla fleece blanket topped with an electric blanket topped with a thick comforter. The electric blanket is set on "5".

Dressed in sweats overnight. Runs to the bano are NOT pleasant.

They're calling for temps in the mid-thirties for 1-2 January. Time to pack the heater and go shopping in Sta Rosalia. Mi yero says dawn temps at home are 25C.

All in the name of getting the car fixed and me fixed up. Then I get the hell out. Forever.

What happens to blankets? Mexican women have a fetish for whites, whiter than white and clean-room grade laundry. A terrible toll is taken on fabrics.

People go into hypothermia in the sticks and are discovered in the spring thaw Their numbers never seem to make the news.

A single electric heater going day and night will drive an electric bill into DAC (Data Alta Consumo). Forty cents a kilowatt hour. Five hundred dollars for 60 days bi-mestral. And one heater in an uninsulated home is like .001% of the heat needed for comfort.

We all discuss the weather here but it really has no serious affect on tourists. Not so for local residents. Today's El Imparcial spoke of temps that hit minus 10in Santa Rosa Sonora and other areas where it was minus 5. This is a disaster for Sonorenses, Even when a cold front brings temps of plus 4 many people freeze to death. The residents of many small villages live in Casas de carton. The wind and the cold just blow right through the house. Electric heat is rarely used as it is very expensive. They make a fire outside and bring the coals inside in a bucket. Lots of fires and of course people die from the fire or asphyxiation from the coals. Many do not have blankets. The Government distributes blankets but I don't know what happens to them. Maybe they sell them once it gets warm! You cannot imagine how cold it can be in Old Kino when the wind gets to 40KMH. Over the years Gringos have probably donated more then 5000 blankets. Very sad.

Moisheh

I have a very accurate portable thermometer, one day going from the San Diego bay, and up to the foot hills in Chula Vista, I got a reading of 5 degrees in a half a mile and 10 degrees of difference between the the half mile and the foot hills.

Some local news forecasters use the national forecast and just read it, that does not help much when you are in an area that is not your backyard, there are weather reporting sites in the internet for pilots, I use them when I travel and the NOAA site to look see, there is another site that has severe weather and hurricane tracking, the last one is good for México.

The Mexican government has a site, I believe it is Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia, run by the Universidad Autonoma de México (UNAM), they are fairlly good.

I remember living in Sweden and the official weather prediction was for sunny sky's and it was raining buckets.

navegator

You're right Mosheh. Sea, desert and mountains affect local temps. I remember walking half a mile from late night bus to the camp in Baja, across a desert-ish area, it was so-so cold on the highway, then a patch of really freezing cold air for a few hundred meters, and then it got warmer by the Cortez sea. I swear there was 4-5 degrees difference.

Readings from airports are sometimes the only source, but they are - usually - too far away from the places where I camp. In this terrain a hundred miles makes a difference.

Temperature variations can be quite different when you have a large body of water and the temperatures just inland, with a couple of hills in between, I have a barometer, indoor-outdoor thermometer as for the wind I would love to have an anemometer, the good ones are a bit pricey.

I do not worry to much about the weather, since I took 2 years of meteorology in college and ran the meteorological station during that time with the other students.

The global weather pattern is changing, we are seeing more drought in the U.S. and more severe storms in winter, I truly fell sorry for all of the folks back East with the coming Spring thaw.

Ocean water temperature and currents also affect the land temperature and the land contour as in Point Concepcion have an effect, some of the weather predictions are done miles away from where you need the real data, I use that as a guide only living in San Diego so many years, the only accurate readings where from the local airports with a control tower, and a weather station.

The warm weather is coming.

navegator

No snow in Nogales yet. Last storm produced a little snow on the 6,000+ foot mountain tops. This Thursday, New Years, has a forecast of snow down to 3,000 feet so maybe then. Maybe they thought the frost was snow! We have been getting down into the low 20s at night and only mid 50s in the daylight hours. TOOOO cold for a full-time Arizona resident. Going to have to head South to get warm!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

navigator: Makes sense but Kino and HMO are 2 different weather places. HMO reported temps as low as 5C overnight for Saturday. Our temps were more like 13 that night. That is very uncommon It is not unusual to leave Kino in the winter with your car heater running. Calle Doce will be about 3c warmer. HMO can be 8c warmer and within an hour you are using the AC. In the summer HMO daytime temps will be much warmer than Kino. Not that it matters as 42c and 38c are not much different. Damn hot! I am not a meteorologist but it must have something to do with sea and the desert with some mountains. However Kino has humidity that combined with the heat is brutal. Some areas of Sonora reported temps as low as MINUS 5 on the weekend. The road to Agua Prieta was closed as it was too icy!

Moisheh

I'll freakin' guarantee you 30 some-odd degrees at 80% humidity is a different animal than it is at 20-30% R/H. Add a breeze or not and asking about only the temperature is almost useless. I did have a start in the 80's waking up to 30F in Guaymas. It snowed in Nogales.

39.2F before dawn on Pacific mid-Baja makes sense. Places like Bahia Asuncion are nice in summer, not so much in winter. You can't have it all.

Pre-dawn freezing temps do happen on the Cortez side too, all the way to Sta Rosalia. Not very often though.