Saturday, July 02, 2011

Very Hot Afternoon


Above is 4 pm view to the north. One convective tower visible far off 9n the distance. Obviously, I goofed up by not mentioning the strong east winds this morning. Mexican obs down the GoC seem to indicate substantial surge coming north. Low has been spinning to the west across the area just south of GoC. Below is GPS PW trace for U of A. PW holding at around an inch in the face of the hot, downslope winds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Hardiman reports from El Paso:
So far things seem to be going as "planned" a few days ago on my last shift. Figured there'd be a good blowup in the Sinaloa-Chih-Durango area last night... a while it was a little underwhelming, it did manage to push a moist outflow out towards the Central GoC.

Bahia Kino's WxUnderground site had a dewpoint jump from 52 F at 08z (7/2) to 76 F at 10z coinciding with the wind shift. This did not appear to reach much farther north.

We've had increasing low-level SE flow across the El Paso area which started yesterday. Managed to get some isolated, small-footprint thunderstorms in the LC/EP area, but very spotty. Did see a couple 0.20" reports in NE El Paso and NE Las Cruces. There was also a wind gust to 70 mph right at the NWS office in Santa Teresa, NM -- rainfall was a Trace.

Looks like the leading edge of SE push with the low level moisture is coming into southern Arizona, but is being moderated by the downslope, especially in central Pima County. Nice little cluster of storms firing up SE of Sonoyta, just south of the border. Blob of rich moisture from Arlene is mainly over Chihuahua as expected... though if it sneaks in anywhere it'll be Cochise County.

If all goes well, there should be more significant thunderstorms today over the Sierra Madres in Sonora... and another moist outflow push into the GoC. Surge tonight or tomorrow? Hopefully in southern NM we'll get some "backwash" moisture from whatever convection forms to our south through tonight. Otherwise... it looks like drier mid-level air will try to nose into here as 500mb flow goes ENE to NE as the ridge repositions itself over the Four Corners.

No comments:

Post a Comment