There were more thunderstorms around yesterday afternoon, mostly from the east side on to the east and north, as the 5 pm visible satellite image above shows. There was also a considerable increase in cloud-to-ground lightning strikes yesterday - see CG plot below. The storms to the east did push an outflow westward across much of Tucson and the clouds developing along this kept my hopes alive for storms developing overhead but it was not to be.
Here at the house we had a tiny spit of drops around 12:30 pm MST and a nice smell of rain later in the afternoon. Mike Leuthold reported lightning, thunder, and 0.30" at his location in the northeast foothills area. TUS and DM AFB both reported thunderstorms again, but with only a trace at DM. The ALERT network had 25 of 93 sites with measurable rain and 4 of these had 0.25" or more - mostly higher elevation and east side sites. This was the biggest "weather event" in eastern Pima County since May 5th. Photo 2 below is from the Arizona Daily Star this morning, showing there was enough rain on the east side to wet the streets (photo by A. E. Araiza).
The two plots here show how the storms kept to the east - above shows rain yesterday at ALERT sites over east metro, northeast foothills, and the Rincons while plot below shows almost nothing over most of metro Tucson and the west side.
The graphic below is forecast from early WRF-GFS of composite radar echoes valid at 1 pm this Fathers' Day afternoon. This is as good as the model can do, as drier air moves in from the west and northwest. So, the mid-June, pre-monsoon moisture blip has done its thing, and we'll suffer through another week of 100+ heat here in Tucson (and of course, even worse conditions in Phoenix).
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