Their were a few strong storms yesterday, mostly well to east of Tucson. Light showers affected much of southeast Arizona. Here at house we had 0.05" in a shower a bit after 9 pm MST. About 45% of the ALERT gauges had rainfall during the past 24-hours - amounts mostly light except for two stations that had over half an inch. It remains very moist this morning, with PWs of about 1.75" at sites across southern Arizona. Yuma has 1.25" but with morning dewpoints around 75F. My last few morning walks along the Rillito have been like strolling along in a sauna.
The morning sounding (above from SPC) shows little change wrt moisture and CAPE but there have been some wind changes. There is now a shallow layer of easterly winds around 630 mb where speeds reach 24 kts. However winds at 500 and 400 mb remain south-southeasterly with speeds less than 10 kts. So a scrambled situation with respect to steering winds.
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The 500 mb anticyclone has two lobes this morning - one nearly over Kingman and one far east over south Texas. A weak short wave/MCV is situated between the lobes, with the MCV center somewhere south of the border southwest of Tucson. This feature is forecast to move slowly to the north-northwest.
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The models didn't do a great job yesterday - I suspect partly because of the critical missing data from Guaymas. It appeared that both models over did rainfall along and south of the border, while in a general sense the WRF-GFS was superior to the NAM north of the border.
This morning the Atmo early run of the WRF-GFS does not forecast much over southeast Arizona today. The composite radar forecast for 4 pm this afternoon (above) is about as active as it gets.
The 1200 UTC NAM forecast of precip through midnight (above) forecasts very light rain along and on the east side of 500 mb trough, with rain amounts to a quarter of an inch in the Catalinas and Whites. So, if the models are on track, not much of a day on tap. August continues to illustrate that moisture alone doesn't directly correlate with a good storm day.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
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