Bear Flat, Arizona Weather
Bear Flat, Arizona — live current conditions, hourly and 7-day forecasts, NWS alerts, radar and satellite imagery, soil and crop conditions for Bear Flat, Gila County.
Full aviation weather for Bear Flat is published on the Payson Airport (KPAN) page, 25 km away. It carries the current METAR decoded into plain language — surface wind, visibility, cloud layers and ceiling, temperature and dewpoint, and altimeter setting — alongside the raw observation as transmitted.
The Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) is shown across its full validity period, with each change group broken out so you can see when conditions are expected to shift. Flight category is derived automatically — VFR, MVFR, IFR or LIFR — from reported ceiling and visibility, with runway details and field elevation alongside. Observations update roughly hourly and forecasts several times a day.
Conditions reported at KPAN describe the airfield itself. Weather 25 km away can differ, particularly in terrain or near the coast. For conditions at Bear Flat specifically, see the current conditions and forecast above.
Soil conditions, frost risk and crop weather for Bear Flat.
About Bear Flat, Arizona
Bear Flat unfurls across the high desert, a landscape sculpted by ancient forces and painted in hues of ochre and rust. It lies 16.9 miles north of Highley, AZ (from Highley, AZ: bearing 5°T), and is situated 15.3 miles east-north-east of Payson. The land here is a study in stark beauty, where low, rounded hills, softened by millennia of wind and sun, tumble into broad, sandy washes. Scattered junipers, their branches gnarled like arthritic hands, cling tenaciously to the slopes, offering scant shade against the insistent Arizona sun. The air, when it’s not carrying the scent of dust and sun-baked earth, often holds a crispness that hints at the elevation, a cool breath in the vast, arid expanse. Here, the sky feels immense, a boundless canvas where clouds drift like forgotten thoughts, and the silence itself seems to possess a tangible presence, broken only by the whisper of the wind or the distant cry of a hawk. The history of Bear Flat is etched into the very grain of its soil, a legacy of hardy souls who sought their fortunes in the earth. Once, the promise of mineral wealth drew prospectors and miners to this remote corner of Gila County, their hopes echoing in the abandoned shafts and weathered timbers that occasionally punctuate the hillsides. Though the boom times have long since faded, a quiet resilience defines Bear Flat’s local economy, often relying on the steady, if unglamorous, work of ranching and the occasional tourism drawn to the stark, unspoiled beauty of the surrounding country. The pace of life here is deliberate, mirroring the slow erosion of the mountains, and the days often unfold with a quiet rhythm, marked by the changing quality of light as the sun arcs across the sky, casting long, ephemeral shadows.
Live animated radar for Bear Flat and surroundings — RainViewer.
NOAA GOES-16 GEOCOLOR — live animated loop updated every 10 minutes. Shows cloud cover, storm systems and weather patterns across the continental US.
Source: NOAA/NESDIS GOES-East · Public domain · Auto-updates on page reload
| Location | Bear Flat, Gila County, Arizona |
| Coordinates | 34.293092°N, 111.06763°W |
| Timezone | Mountain Standard Time — no DST (America/Phoenix) |
| ZIP Code(s) | 85541 |
| Area Code | 480 |
| Page generated | September 2026 |
| Weather data | Open-Meteo (open-source), NOAA National Weather Service |
About This Bear Flat, Arizona Weather Page
This page provides live weather conditions and forecasts for Bear Flat, Arizona, including current conditions, a 24-hour hourly forecast, 7-day outlook, NWS extended text forecast, precipitation radar and NOAA GOES-16 satellite imagery. Aviation weather — live METAR observations and TAF forecasts — is published separately on the pages for the nearest reporting airports, linked from the aviation section above. Additional sections may include tide predictions, wave height, wave direction and sea-surface temperature, a barometric pressure trend, and a solunar-based fishing forecast with a fishing-conditions rating for coastal localities, and soil temperature, crop weather and live USGS river gauge data for agricultural areas near a monitored waterway. All data updates automatically on every page visit.
Location data for Bear Flat includes coordinates 34.293092°N, 111.067630°W, situated in Gila County. ZIP code 85541. Telephone area code: 480. Timezone: Mountain Standard Time — no DST (America/Phoenix).
Weather data is sourced from the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) and the open-source Open-Meteo API. River and stream data is sourced from the USGS National Water Information System. Tide predictions are sourced from NOAA CO-OPS; marine and solunar data are modeled from Open-Meteo and public sunrise/moon calculations and should be treated as a general guide alongside on-the-water conditions. Radar is provided by RainViewer. Satellite imagery is sourced from NOAA/NESDIS GOES-East and is public domain.
