A small thunderstorm developed nearly over campus early yesterday afternoon and moved slowly across this part of town. View above from campusat 3 pm shows the storm about to end here at house. We had south wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph briefly and a heavy downpour that left 0.93" in the gauge. Atmo recorded 0.90" and several other stations hit by this cell had over 0.75" - see metro west sector of the ALERT network below for 24-hours ending at 7 am MST. Across the network 47 of 92 sites measured rain, with 11 stations having over half an inch. Keystone Peak was only station with an inch or more and that gauge caught 2.36 inches. The Carr RAWS station had just over an inch. Plot of CG flashes 2nd below shows that storms mostly stuck to higher terrain, except for the small cluster of flashes over the metro area.
This morning's sounding from TWC on campus (above) still exhibits substantial CAPE, although the westerly winds will be drying Arizona out during the coming 48-hours. There is enough moisture to support some continued thunderstorm activity today over southeast Arizona, especially over higher elevations and along the Borderlands. The early WRF-NAM forecast of PW below is valid at midnight tomorrow night and shows how dramatic the dry-out forecast by models is. Pattern at 500 mb for next 10 days is forecast to continue with mostly westerly winds so we will head into September having to keep an eye out for tropical activity.
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