Photo above is of flooded streets yesterday (Thursday 15 September 2011) in the airport area. A large storm developed slightly west of the airport just after noon and essentially stayed locked over nearly the same area for two hours as new cells developed on the west flank of the original storm (classic training echo system). The event was intense, but also highly localized. The airport received 2.84" of rain and Davis-Monthan AFB recorded 1.94"; however, the Atmospheric Science Dept. received only 0.04" and here at the house we had thunder, a strong cool outflow, and only 0.01".
The map above shows a section of the Pima County ALERT network. The airport and DM are indicated by the airplanes in lower right portion of the map. Across the ALERT network 61 of 93 stations had rainfall during past 24-hours, but the heaviest amounts were clustered near the airport. Five sites had more than an inch, and all are shown on above figure.
The two radar plots above are for 1:03 pm and 1:59 pm MST. The "+" sign within the fork of the interstates is TUS. The Catalinas and Rincons had very little rain yesterday, but the heavier rains extended east-northeast from the airport, across Reddington Pass (i.e., between the two mountain ranges). The runoff from the storm quickly brought the Santa Cruz River up to a flow over 10,000 cfs (from zero) and one person was apparently swept away.
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An interesting aspect of the September storms - the airport (TUS) has had 5.57" of rain, making this the wettest September on record there. However, only a bit more than 10 miles to the north, we have had only 2.08" of rain this month. Quite a gradient.
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As for today, conditions are more stable and the models bring drier, Pacific air across all of southern Arizona during the coming 24-hours. Both the WRF-GFS and NAM forecast only isolated showers for southeast Arizona this afternoon.
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