As I'm typing this in the scorching summer of 2016, the heat that dominates Blythe may give us the imagination of snowfall. It's a chilly opposition to summer weather, but it happened before, despite that the mean annual snowfall of Blythe for thirteen years (maybe somewhere in the 1950s and 1960s) was 0.0 inches. (Worldwide Airfield Summary". U. S. Navy, 1969.) Here are some reports of snow in or near the Palo Verde Valley.
1932: Snow fell in Blythe totaling four inches. (The Blythe and the Palo Verde Valley book published by Arcadia Publishing) Sorry, can't find the exact date.
December 1968: On an early Friday, a rain storm turned into snowfall in some areas, while temperatures reached to a low 30 degrees. Blythe received 0.15 inches of rain but officially obtained no snow according to the "California Division of Forestry" Blythe station. Lots of snow were reported in Eagle Mountain and Needles. The late afternoon of that Friday saw reports of snow in the southern part of the valley due to lower temperatures. The rain in Blythe flooded some major road intersections, including Hobsonway and Main; a picture caption says vehicles floated across the intersection. (PVVT, December 26 1968, a Thursday)
January 1979: A Monday in late January (January 29?) hosted short-lived areas of snowfall after the morning radiation fog's fade. Snow was reportedly found in Eagle Mountain, Vidal, Parker, the Black Rock mesa, and the Dome Rock Mountains (the most prominent snowfall). Blythe received rain, however. There was snow in Ripley too, but not so much, it was "unmeasurable." There are at least two pictures of the snow in the January 31 1979 PVVT edition, including one from Hobsonway.
December 2014: Snow was found in the end of the year or the beginning of the next one, on the mountains east of Ehrenberg and other areas near Quartzsite and Salome, Arizona. Newspaper picture
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