Tropical Storms And A Look At PW This Morning

First - an interesting sign of the times. There was a homeless guy down in the park by the Rillito early this morning, and he asked me if I knew where he could find an electric outlet so he could charge his cell phone.

This morning the first tropical depression in the Atlantic is about to strengthen into a tropical storm - so, later this morning, we'll have Tropical Storms Arthur, Douglas, and Elida all active. In the eastern Pacific both Douglas and Elida are forecast to remain tropical storms and to move basically westward during the next few days.

The current time series of GPS PW from Atmo are shown above. PW has been bouncing around over southern Arizona during the past two days. with many values dropping below an inch yesterday. Phoenix currently has the highest PW, which fits with the 6:00 am MST analysis of blended PW from CIRA at Colorado State (below). The early WRF-NAM forecast this morning also has the inland crescent of higher PW. This blob of moisture will aid development of mountain storms up in the Rim country the next day or so. Note that the GPS sites at Organ Pipe and Hermosilla are only providing intermittent data, and the site at Douglas is down until when/if Atmo finds $$ for repairs needed there.

The CIRA analysis indicates that deep, mT air remains over the south half of the GoC and the CG flashes (below for the 12-hours ending at 06 UTC last night) indicate that this air continues to be active, at least over the land. The CGs last evening do indicate that some convective cores made it a ways out over the GoC. This should help push the mT air further northward up the GoC.