Lots of Morning Sunshine

Very moist environment left behind by yesterday's storms with PWs ranging 45 to near 60 mm out west! The Tucson morning sounding (top) appears to have moderate CAPE, although the comparison with GPS indicates that sounding data are over 3 mm too wet. Thus, there could be a bit more dry air aloft that would tend to focus early storm developments on the mountains. The last sounding that looked like this was impacted by dry advection during the day, but I can't find any obvious indications that there is dry air lurking to the south. The middle image shows that skies are clear in north Mexico and southeast Arizona, so there should be strong insolation this morning. Thus, it should be another fairly active day with threat of heavier rains today. The strong southerly wind profile is not good for many locations, such as the house, which get more heavy anvil than storms. Probably part of the reason storms split around Tucson's lower elevation areas yesterday.
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Longer term - NAM indicates that Pacific trough at 500 mb will have minimal impacts on the large subtropical anticyclone. Model does forecast center to shift westward from cetral Texas and for winds to again become light and variable. The Pacific trough, as it moves across the northern states, will bring the first strong, fall-like cold front south down the High Plains. This front will probably back-door into southeast Arizona early morning hours on Wednesday - so we have to watch out for strong downslope drying midweek. TD Nine-E, probably a TS at this time, is located just south of the Mexican coast at 95 degrees west this morning. This system is forecast to become a hurricane and move southwest of the end of Baja - so another feature to keep an eye on. Looks like an interesting week, although whteher any of these features will bring us a major storm event remains to be seen.