Snow In Tucson..

[rcole_sooner]

I've some pics in my running group from Phoenix, with snow covered mountains in the background. Folks are saying they've lived there for 40 years and have never seen views like that.

 

[Brewdude]

Yes, but rattlers are well-mannered snakes who give you fair warning. Also, a sidewinder won't F you up like a Mojave Green. In fact NY has a more poisonous snake in the form of the Eastern Diamondback.

Pedantic Biologist here, venomous snakes.

If you bite it and get sick they are poisonous, if it bites you and you get sick its venomous.

 

[pnuggett]

Most of the year in Tucson you won't want to walk around barefoot anyway- pavement and sand get waffle-iron HOT!

Anyway, there hasn't been a fatal snakebite in the state in ages, and the scorpions found in AZ only hit on a par with a bee sting, they aren't like some of the lethal Old World ones.

I beg to differ on scorpions in AZ. The most common being the Bark Scorpion.
My wife was stung a few years ago and it was extremely painful not anything like a bee sting. Not even close. She experienced some of the reactions described here.

Venom[edit]

Frontal view of a bark scorpion in a defensive posture
The bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in North America, and its venom can cause severe pain (coupled with numbness, tingling, and vomiting) in adult humans, typically lasting between 24 and 72 hours. Temporary dysfunction in the area stung is common; e.g. a hand or possibly arm can be immobilized or experience convulsions. It also may cause loss of breath for a short time. Due to the extreme pain induced, many victims describe sensations of electrical jolts after envenomation.

Fatalities from scorpion envenomation in the USA are rare and are limited to small animals (including small pets), small children, the elderly, and adults with compromised immune systems. Extreme reaction to the venom is indicated by numbness, frothing at the mouth, paralysis, and a neuromotor syndrome that may be confused with a seizure and that may make breathing difficult, particularly for small children. Two recorded fatalities have occurred in the state of Arizona since 1968; the number of victims stung each year in Arizona is estimated to be in the thousands. In Mexico, more than 100,000 people are stung annually, and during a peak period in the 1980s, the bark scorpion claimed up to 800 lives there.[3]