Summary For July 2nd

Shower and thunderstorm activity was considerably diminished yesterday relative to the 1st of July. I can find the following for rainfall during past 24-hours: 5 of 97 Pima County ALERT gauges; 4 of 12 RAWS stations in southeastern Arizona; Douglas had 0.18" and Nogales had 0.01". Most measured rain was at high elevations and the greates amount I could find was 0.28" at Empire Peak, and all other amounts were less than 0.25", most considerable less.
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The PW time series for TWC (bottom) indicates a rapid drop in PW, after PW amounts had briefly reached 30 mm. The view of the Catalinas shows a continued dirty boundary layer at 7 am, but this will quickly mix out and we'll continue dry at low elevations and the only high elevation activity today (3 July) will be off to the east and southeast. So, Alex proved to be mostly just a tease for Arizona, although parts of New Mexico have fared very well the last several days!
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I can't help but remark on the following from today's early am FD for Tucson:
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A SIGNIFICANT INTERRUPTION TO THE MONSOON EXPECTED THE
NEXT FEW DAYS AS THE DRIER WESTERLIES WIN THE BATTLE AND PUSH
MOISTURE TO THE EAST OF SOUTHEAST ARIZONA.
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Most of us in southeastern Arizona who live and work at lower elevations have yet to experience a start of the summer storms as of yet. Here at house I have not observed lightning or thunder and last measurable rain was way back on April 23rd. We did have Traces on June 28th and July 1st but these were just pathetic spits of rain. Art Douglas has been away in South America and so we don't know if rains have started in earnest down in Ash Canyon. Long-time monsoon forecaster, Pat Holbrook, wrote yesterday that he sees hope for the start of the monosoon here in the metro Tucson area around the 9th of July. Most of us are still looking forward to that first rain that's heavy enough to provide serious cool outflows and to make the desert smell like rain.