Winter in Ridgecrest

It looks, or more accurately, feels like winter has arrived in Ridgecrest. The folks in the mountain states, midwest and east coast who are getting snowed on right now might laugh at this. But for us poor desert rats it's getting cold here. Right now, it is 37 degrees outside. It may get a few degrees colder as the night goes on. For people who are used to months on end of 100 degree temperatures, 37 is cold.

On the bright side however is that it doesn't stay this cold during the day. We can still expect daytime highs in the 60s.

As we get closer to the actual winter season it will get colder here. We will have to suffer through nighttime lows in the 20s and occasional daytime temperatures that only creep into the 40s.

Very seldom do we get snow. If we do it only lasts for a few hours. Last winter we had a snow that actually resulted in schools and businesses being shut down for a day. The snow stayed around long enough to build snowmen, forts and to have some snowball fights with the kids. But those days are rare. Last winter's snow was the first one we had in almost 5 years.

So while the rest of the country is scrapping ice of their windshields, shoveling snow off their sidewalks and slipping and sliding around on icy sidewalks try not to hate us too much. After all we have to wear jackets to work in the morning these days. We can go out to lunch in our shirt sleeves, but if we get out of work after dark we'll need that jacket again.