Sunday, June 19, 2011

Fathers' Day Brings Return To Severe Fire Weather Conditions



This morning's 700 mb chart (top) indicates that west-southwest winds have intruded again from the Paficic, and also that speeds have increased to around 40 kts. This has occurred as the short-wave trough in the West deepens across the Great Basin and Southwest. The GPS PW time series (immediately above) shows that PW values at Tucson have fallen to around 10 mm - the Tucson NWS sounding value remains several mm too dry. Shown below is the Univ. of Arizona, Atmospheric Science Department's early run forecast from their high-resolution WRF - the forecast is for 3 pm,10-m winds. Note that winds in southeast and east Arizona, where the large wildfires are burning, are forecast to be around 30 kts this afternoon. Winds will undoubtedly be quite gusty also. Not a good situation at all, as the heat and severe drought continue unabated in this part of the country..

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