Monday, January 21, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

Campground from Dog Canyon Trail, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo, New Mexico, January 20, 2008

It's warmer, more comfortable without that cold air streaming down the uninsulated windows of this old Lazy Daze. No, we haven't moved, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park is at the mouth of Dog Canyon.

An observation about the southern US climate

I may have to rethink the basic premise of this trip - the idea of escaping northern winters while exploring New Mexico. Traveling about this beautiful land I'm constantly drawn, as I like to put it, "out of the woods." I don't know quite how to explain it but my spirit lifts once I cross the Mississippi River and leave the forested east behind. I feel comfortable in these wide open spaces. This is a feeling I discovered on my motorcycle trips west years ago and have been wanting to explore further ever since, maybe to winter, maybe even to retire, "out of the trees." That's a story for another time; let's get back to the observation.

Ever since I got a late start on this road trip (it was November 15th when I finally left home in New York) I've been trying to get ahead of the cold nights. Two months and 3,500 miles later and the night temperatures are often still colder than when I left New York. What am I missing here?

Through all these years dreaming of getting a chance to explore the southwest I guess I just assumed the southern US enjoys warmer winters than it actually does. Without ever paying much attention, just assuming. Gotcha, John, once again the world isn't what you think it is.

Back to the observation.

It warms up nicely during the day, usually, quite unlike the northeast, but the night time temperatures I've experienced on this trip are more often than not below freezing. Incredibly, at least to naive old me, it was 8 degrees F on two successive mornings when I camped was last week at Bottomless Lakes State Park outside Roswell, New Mexico . Those are the coldest mornings of the trip; colder than those mornings back in New York in fact. This is southern New Mexico; it's not supposed to be this cold here.

While looking at the NOAA Graphical Forecast for CONUS Area the other day I finally saw what I was seeing. It looks to me like southern New Mexico has the coldest climate of any point touching the southern US border. From the Pacific ocean off southern California all the way across southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to the Atlantic ocean of Florida. Can this be right? That to get truly free of frost restricts one to a very small bit of US territory in southern California and Florida, with maybe a bit of southern Texas thrown in for good measure? John, you haven't been paying attention.

Revising Weather forecast for Chatham NY

Today I started working on improvements to Weather forecast for Chatham NY to get forecast information and maybe some climate information, if I can find it, up on my weather pages for the areas I'm interested in. Maybe I can begin to fill in some of the gaps in my climate awareness.

Night camp

Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

• Verizon cell phone service - good signal
• Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
• Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
• Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
• Check the weather here