I have been away fishing a bit in southwestern Colorado the last couple of days and have just gotten back this afternoon - Friday the 9th of September. Didn't see much in the way of weather until today. Pre-sunrise storms with a CG once in awhile along the Colorado/New Mexico border. Then, this afternoon there were numerous Cbs and storms blowing off the east sides of all the mountain ranges from the Rio Grande to the Tucson area. The storms were strongly sheared to the east; were producing frequent CGs; spewing out large, thick, heavy anvils; but were mostly producing narrow, light rainshafts that I could easily see through. All day I did not encounter rain heavy enough to turn the wipers to a steady mode, except during a brief shower just east of Texas Canyon along I-10. There had been anvil shower activity over Tucson, and there was 0.03" in the gauge at 4 pm from a brief shower just before I got home - only measurable rain this week. The deep westerly wind profile, with strong verical shear that is present today, is one that does not produce much here at house- except anvils.
The above is the NCAR analysis of this morning's 250 mb chart - it shows a strong trough in the baroclinic westerlies over the Southwest. The polar jet was located across southern Arizona and New Mexico at 1200 UTC. With cool middle-level temperatures and residual mT, low-level moisture from the GoC, the synoptic setting today was a favored one for transition season, intense, and sometimes severe thuunderstorms.
The image above is the composite radar from Tucson for 4:27 pm MST - showing numerous strong thunderstorm cells, with anvils flung far to the east. Bottom is concurrent photo of the mammatus show going on outside here at the house.
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