Why does this jQuery varibale read as undefined within a each loop?

Why does this jQuery varibale read as undefined within a each loop?

This should be really simple and i do feel daft for asking this BUT for some reason the following code alerts as undefined. Why?
  1. myCount = 1;
  2.             jQuery("div").each(function() {
  3.                 alert(myCount);
  4.             });