Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Late Spring Weather - Breezy with Large Diurnal Swings



Not much to write about these days. View north from Kitt Peak above shows early morning with dirty air trapped near the surface. Winds from the Atmo rooftop anemometer for last seven days, lower graphic, show that it's been quite windy for five of those days, with two days hitting more than 60 mph at that site.
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It has been very dry the last couple of days and, with the increasingly high sun angles, this has allowed large diurnal temperature ranges. The Tucson airport had a high yesterday of 92F, coupled with the observed low here at the house of 38F, indicating that some parts of metro Tucson had a diurnal swing of over 50F. Other observing sites in and near southeastern Arizona that had a diurnal range of near 50F in temperature yesterday included: Nogales 47F; Safford and Sasabe 49F; Douglas and Hachita Valley NM 53F; and Gila Center NM 54F. So the nice crisp, cool morning along the Rillito wash today will rapidly turn to a day of intense sunshine and a need for sunscreen! So it goes in the desert in late spring.

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