Guaymas Back

Mike Leuthold pointed out that Guaymas had appeared again this morning, even though it was missing in action yesterday morning. I had done the plot in post below from NCAR RAL (which has problems getting some of the Mexican data when there are soundings). Later the Univ. of Wyoming site had displayed this morning's Mexican data. So, I have revised the earlier 500 mb analysis.

Above is the original analysis I did early this morning. Below is the revised chart, on which I plotted the observations for Guaymas, Mazatlan, and La Paz. This exercise provides a nice example of how much the "answer" can change with more observations available. As the anticyclone near mid-Baja is pushed northward by Norbert, the steering level winds for thunderstorms change dramatically over Arizona during the next 48-hours.

The skewT plot for this morning's Guaymas sounding (aka Empalme) is shown above. Note the strong south-southeast winds in low levels and the high value of precipitable water (60.35 mm/2.4 in). The low-level, higher dewpoint air has come ashore at Yuma this morning, as per the surface observations shown below. The plot thickens.