This morning PW remains very high over much of the Southwest and all of Arizona - above is CIRA blended PW analysis for 6 am MST. The main cloud shield associated with weak short wave and yesterday's event has moved to west and north of the Borderlands and northern Mexico, where clear skies prevail (vis satellite image below for 7:30 am). The huge data void continues over northwestern Mexico with no upper-air soundings available - just where we need to know what conditions aloft are!
The Tucson morning sounding (12 UTC skewT plot from SPC above) actually appears to have more CAPE than did yesterday's. The wind profile is essentially south-southwesterly through the troposphere however - not a great wind profile for many areas of eastern Pima County. The forecast sounding for Tucson at 6 pm MST this evening (below from Atmo's early WRF-NAM forecast) indicates significant CAPE present with light westerly winds in the boundary layer (BL) - note mixed layer CAPE of almost 1500 m2/s2. The model forecasts scattered thunderstorms over much of Pima County this afternoon, as indicated by the forecast of total rainfall through midnight tonight. Not as impressive an event as yesterday but still of interest, especially for Cochise County. The GFS version of the model is even wetter than the NAM version.
Here at the house I will have to hope for a storm to develop nearly overhead, given the hostile wind profile.
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