Storms moved rapidly into the Tucson area yesterday afternoon between 2:30 and 3:00 pm. I shot the above photo at 2:45 pm looking toward the east. There were several reports of severe winds in south central Arizona and a majority of reporting stations had gusts of 40 to 50 mph. Rain coverage in the Tucso metro area past 24-hours was essentially a 100%. There were 8 stations that had 0.50" or more, and 1 station with more than an inch (DEQ at Ruthraff 1.14"). So, a nice storm event that produced winds of 40 to 50 mph and 0.39" here at house - my 50% chance yesterday was way too conservative.
The subtropical moisture/recycled moisture now covers most of Arizona with precipitable water amounts of around 1.6 to 2.0 inches indicated at lower elevation stations. It appears that the main vorticity lobe mentioned yesterday has moved past Tucson, so that storms today will be driven primarily by orography and local heating. The Tucson sounding has bad data in middle levels, but the data below 650 mb indicate that a little lift or heating will produce parcels with around 1000 m2/s2 of CAPE. Indeed, showers are continuing in many areas this morning.
Winds continue strong through most of troposphere, with some veering from the SSE to the SSW from lower to upper levels, so storms will be fast movers. Water vapor imagery indicates that drier air will be trying to spread northward at high levels but this should not impact the CAPE in the lower troposphere today. Stronger storms today carry a threat of very heavy rain rates and wet downbursts.
The NAM model keeps the moist plume over eastern Arizona through Monday, even though a large portion of the Pacific cutoff/trough comes ashore across the Great Basin. The NAM also indicates a Tropical Storm developing and moving to the southwest of the end of Baja, so that will be something else to watch.
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