Steerpike

The lack of bugs is one of the pleasures of Phoenix metro - no mossies, or anything like it. You can sit outside for dinner all year almost, and not be bothered by bugs.

In July, the dreaded big, scary (and harmless, I think) Palo Verde beetle surfaces for a few weeks and completely freaks me out if I see one. They only live near the Palo Verde tree, and only survive a few weeks, so most people don't ever see them but I have seen several now.

http://myrmecos.wordpress.com/2008/0...-verde-beetle/

I've lived here 4 years now and have yet to see a scorpion. I've seen a few rattlers now, but only on the trails.

Roaches do seem to appear during summer when the storms hit - yet another reason to avoid July! Never seen one in my apartment though.

arran29

We had loads of Cockroaches. Nightmare. They came from the apartment below.

Steerpike

To give some perspective on 'desert', should you be thinking of sand dunes or miles of flat scrubland, the desert on the north-east side of Phoenix (where Scottsdale is located) is lush and beautiful (in my opinion). I went hiking tonight and snapped these pics from 'sunrise trail' in north-east Scottsdale, just 10 minutes from my condo. A dust storm was threatened, but I decided to go anyway. It was a relatively cool 100F when I set off.

AZ_Alba

I know people in Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa, and Tempe who have scorpion issues.

Our neighbour trimmed his palm tree last week and I found 5 adult and 4 baby scorpions in our garden that night. We are miles away from any mountain.

The scorpion used to follow the lines of the old Indian irrigation canals but are now much more wide spread.

SultanOfSwing

Nice pics though. One of these days I'll get down there to see what all the fuss is about ...

Pulaski

Scorpions are much more widespread than people realise, with an estimated 100 populations of them dotted around the UK, many of them thought to have become established when the Romans invaded.

Steerpike

Then you would be disappointed to hear that I wimped out on a hike two weeks ago; I had a hotel reservation at the Grand Canyon, and was all set to drive up and hike down into the Canyon, at least as far as Indian Garden. However, it was the weekend of the "big heatwave", and there was an advisory in place not to hike in the Canyon from 10am to 4pm ... right when I wanted to hike. Temperatures were predicted to exceed 110 at the bottom.

I'm glad I didn't. One lady died in the Canyon that weekend - http://www.grandcanyonnews.com/main....rticleID=10498 .

On the subject of 'dry heat', this article is fantastic (if you are a weather nerd like me!) - http://weatherspark.com/history/3157...-United-States .

Scroll down to the section 'Dew Point' for the really cool stuff ... Note that the dew point spikes in July / August. Scroll back up the 'Humidity' section, and again look at June in comparison to July/August. Then scroll back to the top and look at the temperature - June temps are pretty much as high as they are in July / August. What this all translates to is, June is very hot and very dry, while July / August are very hot and ... well, relatively humid by local standards (pitiful by Florida or Houston standards!).

I stepped out today and noticed two things; it was 'only' 92 in the late morning, and, it felt like crap (humid). A month ago, I remember getting into my car and it being 106, but it felt 'just fine' ...

SultanOfSwing

Well, ignoring a dust storm warning is one thing because the dust storm might not even take place but not going out in 110+ weather was definitely the right decision.

Humidity will just ruin a day. Out by me, we're surrounded by lakes. My town is essentially a penninsula into three quite big ones and there are many others nearby so humidity runs very high very regularly. Granted, our hot days usually stay in the high 80s (though 90+ and 100+ do happen quite a lot) but the humidity can be oppressive. I often wonder how I would fair in the dry heat. My wife has been to California a few times and she says it's easier to deal with dry heat, but then again 100 is hot no matter the moisture content.

Captain Cheesestick

That is exactly my wife's argument. We get 90 degree and 90% humidity. And on top of that for 6 months it's snowing. My wife pines for predictable, dry, hot weather. Add a lot of her field happens to be there. But the reservation is that 105 is ****ing hot - humidity or not. Me I just hate mosquitoes.

SultanOfSwing

I think, on balance, it would be easier to retrain myself to get used to the dry heat though. No mosquitos would be a big plus, of course. My poor dad didn't know what hit him when he was over this year, by the end of the visit he looked like he had a new collection of nipples on his lower legs

kodokan

We live in Mesa, north-east of the Phoenix metro area, in a place that used to be all orange groves. It's startlingly lush and green, as most houses still have access to the original flood irrigation via a network of local canals. Even so, there are still no flying insects whatsoever - I LOVE that. Sure, it does mean we get the scorpions, but judicious blacklight hunting helps keep the population down and we very rarely see them in the house. Hubby's been stung twice (and once was his own fault, walking outside at night with no shoes) and my daughter once, and both were fine - apparently it's like a bee sting, only more painful and lasts longer, but ultimately something that you curse about for a while and then it goes away. It can be more serious, of course, for very young children, or frail elderlies.

The weather's fine. This is our second summer; the first one was surprisingly easy because I'd demonised the weather so much in my head that I was almost expecting to start lightly sizzling if I stepped outside. In reality, you can go about your everyday life, walking from the house to the car to the shops, without any undue effects. In that way, it's no different to a very cold UK January - no-one hangs around outside for fun, but it's still perfectly possible to potter about for brief periods to get places.

Have a pool - almost everyone does - and then you can be outside for some hours, even during afternoons when it's 110 plus. Latent evaporation creates a window of coolness about the pool, and with some shading, you can hang out for hours. Our pool has a shallow deck area of about knee-deep water, measuring about 12ft by 8ft, with a hole for a large umbrella. We put plastic garden lounging chairs in it, and sit under the umbrella with the bottom half of our body in the water, chatting and sipping cold drinks for hours. We've also got of those large cantilevered umbrellas covering a good chunk of the rest of the pool, and that plus UV-blocking T-shirts means the kids can swim for ages without sunburn paranoia.

There are also misters. Lots of shops, bars and some private houses have these - a holey pipe running round the edge of the veranda spraying a fine mist that reduces the air temp inside the 'curtain' by about 20 degrees.

The reliability of the weather is great. Not long after we arrived, a neighbour invited us to his annual friends and family BBQ for 100+ people. He handed me the invite with this thing scheduled for about a month's time, confident that that Saturday afternoon in April would be completely fine. And it was. It certainly makes it easy to plan outside social events or kids' birthday parties.

You also adapt as the season goes on. In May, my daughter and I were cycling home from school in temps in the mid-90s, and finding it warm (for a 15 minute ride, I was packing ice water and spraying her down with a little plant mister spray for the wind chill effect ). Last Thursday, however, the temp was 98 with much higher humidity, and I thought 'Great day to do all the gardening, now that it's dropped below 100!' And it was fine; as it was also a bit cloudy I was out there mowing at noon, and it was easily comfortable enough to do a couple of hours' of work without feeling overhot.

I'd say the only annoying part about the summer weather is the 10 week school vacation. It seems the height of madness to put the bulk of the kids' time off during the season they can't easily spend time outside. But for working people, who're indoors in air-conditioned offices all day anyway, you're really only talking about 10-12 weekends a year when you might be 'stuck' in the house to a greater or lesser degree, and even then there's the pool option, or a boat on a lake, or a mall, or a cinema, or a visit to Northern AZ just 1-2 hours' drive away. It's honestly no more bother than finding things to do during European winter weekends from Nov-Feb.

Steve_

Monsoons, pah, nothing compared to what I've been though in Georgia or Florida. Basically the main problem is everyone drives really slowly. The dust storms are more interesting.

I do find myself suffering in Phoenix when I go for a walk, I know exercise is a bit of a novelty looking at all the fat Americans but I can think of a few times I've thought the weather was okay then after about half an hour it suddenly got a lot warmer and I was in a bad way.

The thing about Phoenix though is that it isn't hard to get out of the heat, just leave the desert, drive north or east for an hour. I remember being in 30 C in Phoenix once and then driving up to Flagstaff and it was -10 C. I was like, I left Calgary for this?

You will however die without AC, not hard for it to get to 40 C or more indoors without AC during the summer. I remember I was there once when there was a power cut for a few minutes and it was a major news story.

There's a fair bit to do in Arizona but it is orientated towards older people, imo. Golf courses everywhere. Lots of wine tasting and that sort of thing.

Steve_

Everyone says this and I personally think it's nothing special. It reminds me of how people go on about how great Vancouver is and I always think they're mad.

As far as I could tell it was full of really old white people, the restaurants were nothing special and the downtown I grant you was better than Phoenix but the downtown anywhere is better than Phoenix, which is just a concrete and glass jungle of office buildings.

I've driven all up and down Scottsdale Ave. loads of times and there's nothing about it that strikes me as being that special. Come off the 101 southbound, ooh, there's a Porsche dealership, then there's an art museum and there's the Fashion square mall further down.

But really, so what? In terms of living how is it any better than Glendale or Peoria (or Mesa as pointed out above)? Better view of Camelback Mountain?

If you go north of the 101 up Scottsdale Ave., then it's quite nice, out in the desert up around Carefree.

I'm sure there are people who have genuine reasons for liking Scottsdale but I tend to think a lot of people say they like it because everyone else does. To me it's just the place where the white people live in large numbers in the greater Phoenix area.

sir_eccles

Yeah I'm no fan of Scottsdale. I avoid old town like the plague except for one or two places. North scottsdale is full of itself.

Downtown phx is interesting because it never really had one and they are trying to develop one now.

The main trouble with the metronome area is nobody really travels between phx mesa chandler glendale scottsdale etc they tend to stay in their town.

scrubbedexpat091

When I lived in the area, I lived in Tempe, and beyond going to work at the airport, never left Tempe really, there was no reason to go into Phoenix, everything you needed was close to home.

I think the whole area is like that, its not a place where you need to go into Phoenix, so why go? I never really felt Phoenix offered anything that Tempe didn't.