It is just about the middle of September, and a quick look at the 10 day forecast for the Phoenix area shows highs over 100 degrees for the next week and a half. Night time lows have finally dipped into the 70s, but it is still quite hot during the days here. A lot of people who get suckered in to moving to Phoenix are often quite shocked when they realize it will still be October, and we are still fighting with temperatures that do top the 100 degree mark. It probably isn’t until near the end of October, that you can really say goodbye to the extreme heat in Arizona for a few months.
A lot of people are use to summers that only average about three months per year. It can be quite frightening when you move here and realize that the summers in Arizona not only last at least two months longer than your typical summer elsewhere, but the summers here are that much hotter and just downright boring. Surviving an Arizona summer year after year is really not something to take lightly – it really does affect the millions of residents out here and it shows especially on the road, at work, in restaurants, and at the store. The summers out here are nothing but vicious and it absolutely will take its toll on you if you choose to suffer through summer after summer out here. Just imagine having to lock yourself indoors for nearly six months a year – it is too out to be outside, and many days it is downright unsafe to be outside. If you have children, you really have no choice but to keep them indoors and many just put them in front of the television all day. Arizona summers tend to bring out the worst in people and just an all around feeling of disgust.
Many outsiders are use to looking forward to summer and the warmer weather, outdoor activities, the summer holidays, and barbecues with family. In Arizona, you pretty much spend your summers stuck inside wanting to blow your head off. And somehow a lot of Arizona residents still think the weather out here is worth bragging about for nine months a year. I know we have a ton of meth heads, alcoholics, and pill poppers in Arizona, but, really, what are these people on?
Arizona has two seasons summer, and summers right around the corner.
Silly people – summer doesn’t end here! LOL We have two seasons, as the above poster mentioned – Summer and I guess you would call it Fall, not winter, although as a native, we no likey anything below 70 degrees. Waaaaay too cold!
Summer lasts for about 7 or 8 months actually, usually starting March or April and really doesn’t until Halloween (though that’s give or take). Again, as a native, I’ve noticed chilly weather not until a little before, during, or after Thanksgiving. It’s usually cold December, January, February and, as I said, cold to us is anything lower than 70. We could deal with 68, but any lower, like 67 and that’s like New York weather. LOL
Summer in Arizona is really bad. I graduated from ASU in May. Barack Obama was giving the commencement speech, so a lot of people wanted to go. We had to line up in order to get through security and enter into the stadium.
Of course, ASU bungled this event big time. They had the thousands of people wait to enter on a black asphalt parking lot, which only soaked up the sun’s heat and only added to the 105 temperature. It was horrible! There were old people waiting to see their grandchild graduate in wheel chairs and walkers sweating profusely. Every few minutes one of them would pass out or collapse and they’d have to rush them to the hospital.
They wouldn’t let anyone bring a bottle of water to the event so everyone was in pretty bad shape that day. Then as soon as you got past security, you were met by vendors selling bottles of water for $5 each.
This was by far my most frustrating and annoying experience with Arizona.
It’s 45 degrees here in Denver today. It may snow here tonight. After a long summer of mid 80’s and low 90’s, the cooler weather is very welcome. Change is good. I used to live in AZ and I can say with complete sincerity that I don’t miss the weather there at all. Mono seasons suck.
I agree with all this. I saw the temperatures of Al Karj, Saudi Arabia, Their temperature window is just as hot as here right now. Normally, their NORMAL highs are 145F in the shade, when around here it is 116F – 125F in the shade. I promise you when I am not exaggerating the term “In the shade”. I was in Al Karj for close to half a year, when in the Air Force, and their heat, in the naked sun was just as hot as here. The sickest part about this joke is when there is “nice, Zonieland breeze” about. This breeze is HOT AIR (Like JOHN MCCAIN, another zonked out Zonie.). Not the “gentle, ocean-like breeze” they like to sucker people in with.
You know, I just have to say that I grew up in Arizona and it is a hell of a lot better than where I live now (Texas). I did more in any given Arizona summer than I’ve done in my four years in this rural idiot magnet of a state. The dry heat thing may seem ridiculous to people who haven’t lived in southern states like Texas because, well, it IS still hot. Hot as hell, and the days over 110 are killer just to walk across the parking lot. There are a lot of HOT days. But it isn’t humid. It IS a dry heat, and 110 with 8% humidity is infinitely preferable to 100 with 80%. I would much prefer to still live in Phoenix to this humid redneck hellhole of a state. It isn’t nice here in the winters, either, like it is in Arizona. It is too cold. You wouldn’t think of a state like this as being cold, but the weather here is erratic, the worst of every world. Arizona doesn’t get hurricanes.
Maybe it’s no California, but it’s an affordable alternative, and the cons aren’t nearly as many as living in the cold as hell northeast and mountain states (45 in SEPTEMBER? that’s too cold for winter..), or the humid hellish southeast.
I agree with the poster above, anon. Weather in AZ is spectacular. The heat is what I love – it is a phenomenal stimulant, one that invigorates the mind, leading to hard, long, brutal workouts and remarkable fat loss. You get used to the heat in your second year. If you cannot take it, leave.
Arizona is a beautiful state, the dirtier parts of Phoenix and South Tucson being exempt from this praise of course. Even while residing in beautiful San Diego I dream of ultimately living in a ranch in Arizona. I had the privilege to live in Oro Valley and North Scottsdale and it was life altering. Clean, quiet neighborhoods, full of professionals like me. And it was 90%+ white. Perfect. Just a preference.
This site has post numerous valid complaints about life in AZ. There is no such thing as Zion, I’m afraid to remind you, and if you’d rather live in the Midwest of East Coast, by all means……get on with it. There are virtually no jobs in Phoenix, Flagstaff or Tucson. Welcome to Globalism. It’s tough out there. Americans have been living in a fantasy for the last 30-40 years. The Great Correction is now transpiring and you are living through it. Job losses will keep the state pure for a long time. Only those who’ve made it or want it badly will stand strong.
Cost of living in AZ is very low, and firms have adjusted wages accordingly. It’s difficult to demand CA money. I don’t even earn CA money and I live in SoCal.
What I love move about AZ is how minimalist places like Tucson are. It’s remarkable how spread out and relaxed the environment there is. I would sit in Sam Hughes neighborhood and not see a car go by for an hour. Here in CA you feel so damn stressed in everything you do. Every corner you turn has 50 cars waiting to fly by you. It’s noisy as hell, bikers are everywhere. Taxes are out of control. The state is dirtier than people realize. Many parts of CA literally look like an upscale third-world country (Mission Beach).
I also miss the peace and quiet, beauty and modernity to Scottsdale. The 30-K millionaires on http://www.dirtyscottsdale.com (do check it out) had their run and they’re being purged progessively by a rapid shift in economic conditions that began with the housing implosion and continues with the scarcity of jobs increasing and unemployment, stress, dispair likewise.
I’ll head back to AZ, once I can get a decent job. The fewer people left when I arrive, the better.
I guess you won’t be coming back to Arizona anytime soon since there are very, very few decent jobs out here.
Other than that, I really am finding it difficult to respond to your comment. I think this ’spectacular’ weather you speak of out here has managed to melt your brain.
Allstar, you make some decent arguments, but you are living in a state which has managed to be worse off than AZ, so AZ looks really good right now. Why don’t you shoot a bit higher when things turn around? No disrespect, you SoCal people seem to have a good attitude compared to here, but why not look into Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Washington, etc? If you got 200,000 – 500,000 liquid assets, then AZ could work out- go to Sedona, Payson, Flagstaff. If you are considered high middle class or lower plus have any debt it’s going to be interesting, especially in Tucson or Phoenix.
Phoenix sucks the biggest, hairyest, smellyest balls in the world.
99 today, F U Arizona
Can anyone tell me of their experiences with crooked law enforcement in this state? Especially Tucson?
Sitting here in Denver today watching the snow fall outside my window. Temps were in the 60’s and 70’s all week up until today. We will have snow until Friday then temps will warm up and it will be sunny over the weekend. That will be the time to break out the sled and head to park to find some hills. Few things are as pretty as a cool day with sunshine and snow-covered ground. Seasons are marvelous by the way. I have no idea why anyone would choose to live in a place that is over 100 degrees half of the year! I haven’t missed the weather in AZ at all since leaving. That place is hell on Earth.
Well I just HAVE to respond to “anon” about living in TX vs. living in AZ. I was born and raised in SW Florida, which is way more humid than TX ever dreamed of being. There is NO comparison to summer in Florida versus summer in Arizona. First of all, it is NOT AS HOT in Florida! This crap about humidity is just that: crap! When it’s 115, it’s 115!!! Humidity doesn’t matter when it’s hot enough to kill you outside!!! Second, in the SE you get RAIN! Yes, that’s that phenomenon when water falls from the sky!!! Almost unheard of here in AZ, in Fla. it rains about every afternoon in the summer, so you get a break from the heat!!! AND in Fla. (and TX) you have these things called: BEACHES! You can go there & get in the water & get away from the heat!!! In AZ, you can go to a lukewarm swimming pool that is basically like taking a bath, along with every other idiot in AZ AND their screaming kids, and take a nice, miserable soak!!! Yippee!!! There just is nothing like the hell that is summer in AZ. Nothing.
Being a resident of Arizona (specifically Phx Metro) for almost 20 years I have found that Az. is a melting pot of ignorant people not even TRYING to look out for their neighbor; but figuring out a way to plunge the knife in deeper. The weather sucks, yep, the roads suck, yep, the fact that you can’t breathe outside in the summer heat and the fact that there is a permanent brown cloud over the valley are parts of the reasons I can not stand the state. I remember in the 70’s when Doctors all over the country would tell asthma patients to ‘Move to Arizona, the air is clear and clean there’. I have heard this with my own ears. Of course these people DID move there – cut down the orchards and trees and created a heat column where the storms split and go around the valley instead of going right over the valley and cooling it. I am SO glad to have left there and will NEVER live there again!
With a new post about life in az!
Thanks! I enjoy reading this site and have been waiting for a new post.
Arizona does not suck! Arizona rocks all you people are just babies!!
I mean who even takes the time to write something like this. get a life people! and stay away from arizona cuz arizona doesn’t need lame ppl.
“arizona cuz arizona doesn’t need lame ppl.”
STFU text-speak retard! Go like, drive a car, text and crash already!