Yesterday afternoon isolated thunderstorms occurred about as forecast by Atmo's early run of the WRF-GFS. The storms were generally to the east, over higher terrain, and also in Santa Cruz County. The IR satellite image above, with lightning strikes superposed, was sent along by Art Douglas - time of image was 0245 UTC. There are some CGs indicated near Nogales. The bulk of the lightning was associated with the substantial MCS over Sonora - Carlos Minjarez reported storms, hail, wind and 14 mm of rain at his location in Hermosilla.
The plot of GPS and RAOB PW at Tucson (below) shows that PW has been slowly increasing during the past 5 days - values now being around 20 mm. The agreement between the systems has, frankly, been remarkable given the dry heat of the the past 5 days - high yesterday at TUS was 108F. The big question is whether the increase will continue and lead to some storms of more substance on this side of the border. Because of low-level outflow from last night's northern MCS, one would expect that, if there is another this evening, that it would be further north. More on what's in store in next post.
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