Having fun outdoors in Arizona is easier said than done.
It’s definitely colder in the mountainous regions, especially on the Colorado Plateau in the north, but the rest of Arizona is desert land.
It gets excruciatingly hot for a large portion of the year, and our winters are mild as well. I have friends that live in Flagstaff and Sedona who all see snow in the mountains during the winter holidays, but it is largely absent from Phoenix most years. The last time there was a notable snowfall at lower elevations was in 1998, when Sky Harbor Airport recorded a mere trace of snow at 0.22 inches of precipitation. Like many of the places in Florida where my extended family is located, Phoenix has highs in the 60s and 70s during the winter and lows in the 40s most days. Once we roll into summer weather, things change drastically. Temperatures climb above 100 degrees, sometimes above 110 degrees. If you go out hiking and the weather is too intensely hot for you to handle, refusing to turn around and go home could result in a serious emergency. I went hiking with my girlfriend in the South Mountain Park and Preserve yesterday like we do any other time we come. Usually we wait to go hiking until the weather starts to cool off in September and October, but I was being stubborn and wanted to go in early August. Needless to say the temperature was 110 degrees outside and we had to turn around and head back to my apartment in Phoenix.