We’re roasting in Benson

18 July 2019
Benson, AZ

The weather here in the San Pedro Valley of AZ has treated us kindly this year. As Merle Haggard said, “things are exactly as I choose to recall…“, and as I recall 2018, we’d been in and out of the 100°’s a few times before the end of April; snowbirds were gone by the first week of May.

Not so this year. We saw the last of the winter visitors head out about the end of June. We saw our first 100°F day about 13 June… probably 15:00 to 16:00 in the afternoon. Looks like there will be more than coffee roasting for the next few months as summer weather settles in.

Back in June I was hoping luck would be on our side and that monsoons would start by the first week of July (the traditional start). Not so as the clouds struggled to get properly formed and were generally a disappointment. We saw rain in the distance, but the rain never reached the ground. When they finally came, the first 2 T-storms produced all of about 0.01″ of rain each according to our Davis weather station. On about 15 July we finally got a decent bit of thunder, lightning & rain that gave 0.16″ of rain… that’s about 0.19” so far for all of July. Big whoop.

Even with monsoons we still see frequent days of 100°F-115°F before a brief T-storm hits in the afternoon. For us, monsoon rains mean 1 to 15 minutes of hard rain accompanied by strong wind and lightning. Cools off maybe 20-30 minutes ahead of the rain and for maybe 30 minutes after, then the heat is back along with over 60% humidity instead of the usual 5%-10%.

Fortunately our casita has a portal to allow setting up the coffee roaster & computer in the shade. That plus the fixed awning attached to the trailer offers sun protection all day, though outside temps are still so high only a fool would try to work in that heat. Once a T-storm hits, things get pretty wet under the portal & awning thanks to the accompanying wind. In general, anything we need to do outside should be done before 9:30 unless it’s under the portal where I can maybe stretch it to about noon.

Not perfect, but it works.

Btw, the usual population of diehard summer residents is about 85 sites. There are 1 to 2 people per site, so I’m not sure how many souls are actually here dealing wtih the heat… I’ll guess it’s about 125-130. Mmmm… plus the rats, snakes, rabbits and coyotes.