Cold Across The Southwest

Another cold morning here at house with temperatures in the 20s again this morning. The 6 am MST surface plot across the metro Tucson area is shown above. I note that it's 32F out west at Organ Pipe and down to 21F at the Empire Raws. Temps here at house are often very close to the Empire temperatures, even though the elevation out there is over 2000 ft higher than here. The concurrent IR satellite image (below) shows a swath of cloud overhead before sunrise (note that TUS ASOS observation is clear since the automatic station does not detect clouds above 12000 ft). The clouds have let temperatures moderate a bit during last hour or two - at 6 am here at the house it was 28F but earlier in night it had been down to a low of 24F.

The early run of the Atmo WRF-GFS model forecasts two more chilly days and cold nights for the local area - see above table for today through tomorrow night. Finally, a 6 am surface plot for much of the Southwest is shown below. There are single digit temps in northeast Colorado. A snowstorm is underway over the eastern 2/3rds of New Mexico, with snow on both sides of the Front Range and in the northern Rio Grande Valley. Brrrr.