Dry eyes in Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff dries eyes out in a different way from the desert below it. The airport weather station sits about 7,000 feet up, winter nights fall below freezing more than 200 times a year, and sun on 90 inches of seasonal snow adds glare. Thin, cold, often windy air and furnace heat indoors pull moisture from the tear film, so protection outdoors and humid air indoors both help.

How high is Flagstaff, and why altitude matters

NOAA lists the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport weather station at 2,134.5 meters, which works out to just over 7,000 feet. At that height the air is thinner and, on most days, carries little water vapor. Sunlight is stronger too, and it bounces off snow and pale rock. People who drive up from Phoenix for a weekend often notice their eyes feel drier and more tired on the first day, before they’ve noticed anything else about the altitude.

Snow, cold and furnace air

NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals for that station put average seasonal snowfall at 90.1 inches, with January the snowiest month at 20.9 inches. The ground has at least an inch of snow on it on about 62 days in a typical winter. The same records count 202 nights a year, on average, when the low drops to 32°F or below. That’s more than half the year with freezing nights.

Cold air holds very little moisture, and once it’s pulled indoors and warmed by a furnace or a wood stove, its relative humidity falls sharply. That’s why Flagstaff homes can feel parched in January even after a storm has buried the yard. If your eyes feel worst first thing in the morning, the bedroom air is a good place to look.

• Run a humidifier in the bedroom through the heating season, and clean it on the schedule its manual gives.
• Keep the thermostat moderate at night; hotter indoor air is drier air.
• Aim car heater vents at your feet or the windshield, not your face.
• Wood stoves and fireplaces dry the room quickly, so sit a few feet back from them.

Sun, glare and wind on the mountain

A clear morning on the San Francisco Peaks after a snowfall is beautiful and very bright. Light reflects up from the snow as well as down from the sky, and the wind on the ridges moves dry air across your eyes without a break. Skiers at Snowbowl, hikers on the Kachina Trail and anyone shoveling the driveway are out in the same conditions.

• Wear wraparound sunglasses or goggles that block wind from the sides.
• Take short breaks out of the wind on long days outside.
• Blink deliberately when you come in from the cold; people tend to squint and blink less in glare.
• If your eyes become painful or your vision changes after a day on the snow, get them checked rather than waiting.

Wide swings from day to night

Flagstaff’s days and nights are far apart. NOAA’s normals show an average gap of 30 degrees between the daily high and low over the year, and 36.7 degrees in June, when a 79°F afternoon commonly gives way to a low in the low 40s. A June day in town can feel pleasant and still be very dry; NOAA’s Comparative Climatic Data tables put Flagstaff’s average June afternoon humidity at 20 percent.

Late spring is the stretch many residents find hardest. The snow is gone, the monsoon hasn’t arrived, June’s normal precipitation is just 0.30 inches, and spring wind picks up dust from dry ground. Then July and August bring most of the summer rain, with normals of 2.61 and 3.04 inches, and afternoon storms that make the air feel softer for a while.

Is Flagstaff drier than Phoenix?

Not by the numbers. Flagstaff gets about 20.52 inches of precipitation in a normal year, nearly three times Phoenix’s total, and its average afternoon humidity across the year is 39 percent in the NOAA humidity tables. The difference is in what kind of dry it is: cold, high and windy with long heating seasons, rather than hot and dusty with long air-conditioning seasons. Students arriving at Northern Arizona University from either direction, coastal or desert, sometimes find their eyes take a few weeks to settle in.

A lubricating drop at 7,000 feet

On the label, the Uses line reads: For use as a protectant against further irritation or to relieve dryness of the eye. Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. The directions say: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. For ordering to a Flagstaff address, see our Flagstaff page; the Arizona page covers other towns in the state, and dry air, wind and altitude goes further into why elevation matters.

Cold is a storage question here in a way it isn’t in most places. The label’s storage line reads: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). So a bottle shouldn’t spend a January night in the truck or a day in a ski locker. Keep it in an inside pocket or a bag that comes indoors with you. Before using a bottle that has been somewhere cold, check it against the Do not use line: If this product changes color. The milky look itself is expected: Product appears as a milky brown solution.

Two label lines to read before you start. The caution: Caution should be used in those with egg or bird allergies — For use in the eyes only. And the stop-use line: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours. If you aren’t sure whether your symptoms are the weather or something else, ask an optometrist or ophthalmologist.