Outlook For Today

There apparently wasn’t enough rain from yesterday’s high-based storms to support much recycling, and the morning soundings remain quite dry below 600 mb. There will likely be CAPE available at low elevations this evening, but the TWC soundings have been so bad this week that there’s little help available from them. Last night’s sounding provided no help at all for making a short-term forecast as thunderstorms approached from the east (see radar image on blog). The sounding was apparently about a HALF AN INCH too dry wrt PW! One could make guesses with an interactive routine to try to “fix” the sounding but those are still guesses. One of the stronger storms propagated toward the south and hit the radar site in the Empire Mountains, knocking the radar offline for much of the evening.

I note that the Phoenix sounding this morning has increased PW at 42.1 mm, which is a good sign for this afternoon. There have been problems with the GPS PW network, so there is little info available for cross-evaluation.

Another dilemma this morning relates to the NAM analyses and then its forecasts for this evening. The 500 mb anticyclone is quite strong now and centered over northern New Mexico. The NAM analyses indicats a weak S/W southwest of El Paso – satellite loops indicate a feature in this area moving toward the west-northwest. (The 700 mb plot indicates that a weak inverted trough extends north from the southern end of the GoC into western New Mexico, further indicating that there’s a feature where the model thinks it is.) The NAM forecasts this feature to intensify during the day and move into southeastern Arizona this evening. The NAM forecasts an excellent setting for severe storms this evening and it would likely be a very significant storm day if there were a more moist and unstable boundary layer present. As it is though, there will likely be a bit more CAPE today and there should be an increase in storms with more winds and dust and nice lightning displays.

My outlook for here at the house is that today is the best day since July 22^nd and that measurable rain chances are about 50%.