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The short answer is “12.7 inches per year”.

I grew up at the beach in LA, where “snow” was something that you drove to, not something that you lived in.

I’m not a fan of snow, but I do love Prescott, so snow is an issue for me.

But, it’s a tolerable issue.

The thing about Prescott is that it’s in the mountains, at a relative high elevation at 5,400 feet, higher than Denver, CO, at 5,280 feet.

Flagstaff, to the north, is higher and gets much more snow, at 103 inches per year.

Phoenix, to the south, is hot all year and never gets snow.

Prescott is in the middle of the state and it is just right.

This was taken after a huge storm in Feb. 2019. It’s unusual to get this much snow. This is at Courthouse Square, looking west, at Thumb Butte.

The Reality Of Snow in Prescott

The thing is that we really don’t get exactly 12.7 inches every year.

Sometimes, it’s more and sometimes it’s less.

A normal snow storm in Prescott will drop a couple of inches.

Maybe every other year or so, we will get 5 inches at one time. It’s rare that we get 10 inches at once.

We also don’t have days of overcast weather. It seems that the cold front will come through and drop the snow, but the next morning, it’s clear and sunny.

It might stay cold, but the sun hits the ground and the snow melts, usually within a day or so.

Looking down Elks Hill to Courthouse Square. The sun is out and melting snow the day after. This was taken after a huge storm in Feb. 2019. It’s unusual to get this much snow.

City Maintenance

The city is set up and ready for those snow storms.

Snow plow trucks will be out and clearing the streets as soon as the snow starts falling.

The first pass is to move all of the snow to the center of the streets, to clear lanes for traffic.

The second pass is with bulldozers picking up the piles of snow from the center of the roads and dumping it in dump trucks which haul it away.

Roads have also been temporarily shut down while the snow is removed.

I never followed a dump truck, so I’m not sure when they dump it, but we have plenty of open land around.

All I know is that it magically disappears through the hard work of our maintenance department.

Snow piled in the middle of the road so cars can get by on each side. This was taken after a huge storm in Feb. 2019. It’s unusual to get this much snow.

Elks Hill

The first block to the east of Courthouse Square on Gurley St. is a busy street.

It’s also a bit of a hill. Because the Elk’s Theater is located there, it’s referred to as “Elks Hill”.

When we get some snow, or a little ice, cars have a hard time making it up the hill, so they shut that one block down.

I remember sitting in the driveway of the Hassayampa Hotel, watching a brand new Camaro spins it wheels all the way up the hill at about 2mph. I could have walked faster than it was moving.

They closed the street about 10 minutes later.