Friday, November 09, 2012

Early Morning Showers


The 500 mb short wave continues to dig south-southeastward down the California coast - above is 8 am MST water vapor image. There were several early morning bands of showers across the Tucson area - about 67% of the ALERT netwrok stations measured rainfall, with amounts mostly light except in the Catalinas - see ALERT rainfall map below (amounts mostly fell after midnight). Rains were mostly over the northern portions of the ALERT network; here at the house we have 0.11" in the rain gauge this morning. It turns out that the day 2 WRF-GFS forecast verified better for last night than did yesterday morning's forecast.


There has been a bit of lightning around and the 12 UTC Tucson sounding (below) shows that there is a bit of CAPE present. So a possibility of thundershowers continues this morning into mid-afternoon. Note that PW was up to around an inch and the moisture in the atmosphere this morning was very nice after such a long dry period.


This morning's early WRF-GFS did not catch the showers after midnight, so the forecast of rainfall through noon tomorrow (below) may have some problems. It does appear that showers are likely today, followed by  a break before frontal showers during the night. The model still forecasts strong and gusty winds this afternoon and early night - the east side of the Huachucas may be prone for a period of strong downslope winds after midnight tonight. An interesting event underway - hopefully the impacts on U of A Homecoming won't be too adverse.


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